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HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA
AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
VOL. I.
HISTORY OF
t in flhcenidu
AND ITS DEPENDENCIES
FROM THE FRENCH
OF
GEORGES PERROT,
PROFESSOR IX THE FACULTY OF LETTERS, PARIS ; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE,
AND
CHARLES CHIPIEZ.
ILLUSTRATED WITH SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT
t AND TEN STEEL AND COLOURED PLATES.
IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. I.
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
WALTER ARMSTRONG, B.A., OXON.,
AUTHOR OF "ALFRED STEVENS," ETC.
: CHAPMAN AXP HALL, LIMITED.
ork: A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON.
1885.
ILontion :
R. CI.AY, SONS, ANO TAVLOK,
liREAD STREET HII.I..
r\
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE PHCENICIAN CIVILIZATION".
PAGE
§ i. The Situation of Syria and the Configuration of the Phoenician
Coast i — IT
§ 2. The Phoenicians; their Origin and their First Establishment . . . n — 56
§ 3. Religion 56—83
§ 4. The Phoenician Writing 83 — 93
§ 5. General Remarks upon the Study of Phoenician Art 93 — 102
CHAPTER II.
ON TH GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PHCENICIAN
ARCHITECTURE.
§ i. Materials and Construction . .' 103 — 113
§ 2. Forms . . : 113 — 125
§ 3. Decoration 126 — 141
CHAPTER III.
SEPULCHRAL ARCHITECTURE.
i. The Ideas of the Phoenicians as to a Future Life " 142 — 148
§ 2. The Phoenician Tomb 149 — 179
§ 3. Sarcophagi and Sepulchral Furniture 179 — 213
§ 4. The Phoenician Tomb away from Phoenicia • 213 — 250
viii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
SAC'RF.D ARCHITKCTfRK.
$ i. The Temple in Phoenicia 251—272
§ 2. The Temple in Cyprus 272 — 301
§ 3. The Temples of Go/o and Malta 301 --318
§ 4. The Temples of Sicily and Carthage 318 325
§ 5. On the General Characteristics of the Phoenician Temple .... 325 332
CHAPTER V.
CIVIL ARCHITECTURE.
§ i. Fortified Walls ... 333—364
§ 2. Towns and Hydraulic Works ... 364 — 384
§ 3. Harbours • . 385—410
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE.
PAGE
I. Three Cypriot heads To face 264
TAIL-PIECES, &c.
Cypriot head, Louvre Title.
Chapter I. Funerary cone, from Sidon 102
,, II. Cone-shaped seal, French National Library 141
,, III. Sardinian scarab 250
„ IV. Coin of Mallos 332
„ V. Sardinian scarab 410
FIG.
1. The Nahr-el-Fedar 5
2. Plan of the passes at the Nahr-el-Kelb 7
3. View of the passes at Nahr-el-Kelb 9
4. Syria in the time of the Egyptian domination 17
5. Tyre before the siege of Alexander 21
6. Tomb at Amrit 24
7. The walls of Arvad 25
8. Phoenician merchant galley 34
9. Phoenician war galley 34
10. Map of the Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean basin 35
n, 12. Carthaginian coins 52
13. Votive stele from Carthage 53
14, 15. Votive steles from Carthage 54
16. Fragment of a votive stele from Carthage 55
17. Descent from the Pass of Legnia, in the Lebanon 58
18. The sources of the River Adonis 59
19. Coin of Byblos < 61
20. Astarte 65
21. Bes „ 65
22. Pygmy >. 66
VOL. I. b
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Fill. 1'AGE
23. Upper part of the stele of Jehawmelek 69
24 Resef 72
25. Baal-Hammon 74
26. From a bronze in M. Peretie's collection 78
27. Child god 79
28. Votive stele 81
29. 30. From a Carthaginian votive stele So
31. Egyptian writing-case 86
3^. Fragment of a bron/e cup 90
33. Fragment of a sepulchral cippus 92
34. Phoenician wall of Eryx 97
35. Carthaginian mason's mark 98
36. Phoenician platter 99
37. Rock-cut house at Amrit 104
38. Rock-cut walls at Saida 104
39. Fragment of the map of Amrit 105
40. The tabernacle of Amrit 105
41. Remains of the walls of Sidon 106
42. Substructure of one of the temples at Baalbek 107
43. Square pier from Gebal 109
44. Wall of Tortosa no
45. Masonry from the Tower of the Algerines . , . , no
46. Wall of a temple at Malta in
47. The wall of Byrsa 112
48. Entablature from a temple at By bios 114
49. Capital at Golgos 117
50. Capital from Edde 117
51. Cypriot capital 118
52. 53. Cypriot capitals 119
54. Ornament from a Cypriot stele 120
55- Cypriot capital 120
56. Cypriot capital 121
57. The Serpent Grotto 122
58. Coin of Cyprus 123
59. Egyptian coffer 126
60. Phoenician cornice 127
61. Details of a cornice 127
62. Sculptured fragment 128
63. Cornice on a tomb 128
64. Moulding from a plinth 128
65,66. Mouldings from the base of a pyramidion 128
67. Coin of Byblos 129
68. Elevation of the doorway at Oum-el-Awamid and section of the lintel . . 129
69. Winged globe 130
70. Winged globe with crescent 130
7 1 . Sidereal symbols from a Carthaginian stele 131
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi
FIG.
72. Marble column ........................ 131
73. Alabaster slab ........................ 132
74. Egyptian winged sphinx .................... 133
75. Phoenician scarabreoid ..................... 134
76. Alabaster slab ........................ 134
77. Alabaster slab ........................ 135
78. Altar with stepped ornament .................. 136
79. Rosettes enlarged ....................... 137
80. Stone trough ......................... 137
Si. Fragment of relief ....................... 138
82, 83. Candelabra figured on a stele ................. 138
84. Fragment of a sculptured slab .................. 139
85. Egyptian palette ........................ 140
86. Sarcophagus of Esmounazar ................... 143
87. Section of the Burdj-el-Bezzak ................. 150
88. Part of the Cemetery of Amrit ................. 151
89. Tomb at Amrit ........................ 152
90. 91. Tomb at Amrit ...................... 152
92, 93. Plan and section of a tomb at Amrit ............. 153
94. The Meghazils of Amrit .................... 155
95. Tomb at Amrit ........................ 157
96. 97. Plan and section of a tomb at Amrit ............. 158
98. Tomb at Amrit restored .................... 159
99. Longitudinal section of a tomb at Amrit ............. 159
100, 101. The Burdj-el-Bezzak ..................... 161
102. Section of a tomb at Sidon ................... 162
103, 104. Wells in a tomb at Sidon .................. 163
105. Longitudinal section of a tomb at Sidon .............. 164
1 06. Plan of a portion of the necropolis of Sidon ............ 165
107. Section through line A, B, c, of Fig. 106 .............. 165
108. Section through D, E ...................... 166
109. Section through N, M ...................... 166
no. Section through K, L ...................... 166
in. Tomb of Esmounazar ..................... 167
112. Section of the tomb of Esmounazar restored ............ 168
113. The "Tomb of Hiram" .................... 171
114. Necropolis of Adloun ..................... 173
115. Entrance to a Giblite tomb ................... 175
1 1 6. Interior of a Giblite tomb ................... 177
117. Section showing the soundings in the Giblite tombs ......... 178
1 1 8. Graves dug in the rock at Gebal ................. 180
119. Two Giblite sarcophagi ..................... 181
1 20. Sarcophagus from Oum-el-Awamid ................ 182
121. Cippus from Sidon ....... - ............... 182
122. Sandstone coffin ....................... 183
123. Leaden coffin ......................... 183
xii LIST OK ILLUSTRATIONS.
KIO. I'Ar.E
124. Sarcophagus of Sidon 184
125. CotVin of painted stone from an old drawing 185
126. Sarcophagus of Sidon 186
127. Head from an anthropoid sarcophagus of Sidon 186
128. Sarcophagus from Sidon 187
129. Sarcophagus from Sidon 188
130. Fragment of an anthropoid sarcophagus in terra-cotta 190
131. Comparative sections of a Phoenician sarcophagus and an Egyptian
mummy-case 191
132. Anthropoid sarcophagus from Sidon 192
133. Sarcophagus from Solunte 193
134. Marble sarcophagus found at Solunte . 195
135. Sarcophagus from Sidon 198
136. Iron holdfast and coffin handle 198
137. Lion's mask 200
138. Sarcophagus from Sidon 201
139. Alabastron 204
140. Baul-Hammon 205
141. Scarab with face of Bes 206
142. Astarte 208
143. Mother goddess 208
144. Mother goddess 209
145. Terra-cotta chariot 210
146. Silver ring with scarab in agate 212
147. Alabaster vases 216
148. Plan of a tomb at Dali 218
149. 150. Terra-cotta statuettes 219
151. Cypriot stele 223
152. Cypriot stele 225
153. 154. Tomb at Amathus 227
155. Plan of a tomb at Amathus 228
156. Section through the ravine at Amathus 228
157. Interior of a tomb at Amathus 229
158. Doorway of a tomb at Amathus 230
159. 1 60. Plan of a tomb at Nea-Paphos 231
161. Courtyard of a tomb at Nea-Paphos 232
162, 163. Plan and section of a tomb at Mall a 235
164. Cross section of above tomb 236
165. Plan of a Carthaginian tomb 238
1 66. Section of a Carthaginian tomb 238
167. Plan of a tomb at Sulcis 240
1 68. Section of a tomb at Sulcis 241
169. Tomb at Cagliari 242
170. 171. Sections of a tomb at Cagliari 243
172. Funerary Cippus from Tharros 243
173, 174. Cippi from tombs at Tharros 244
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii
FIG. PAGE
175. Sandstone cippus with Phoenician inscription 244
176. Interior of a tomb at Tharros 245
177. Statuette in glazed earthenware 245
178. Amulet in glazed earthenware 246
179. Glass amulet 246
180. Scarab 246
181. Scarab in form of a sow 247
182. Amulet in white earthenware, glazed 247
183. 184. Etuis found in the tombs 247
185. The Maabed at Amrith 253
186. Ceiling of the Maabed at Amrith 254
187. The Maabed at Amrith 254
1 88. Monolithic tabernacle of Ain-el-Hayat 257
189. Plan of the two tabernacles at Ain-el-Hayat 257
190. Ruin in the neighbourhood of Sidon 260
191. Stone altar 261
192. Votive stele from Carthage 263
193. Votive stele from Sulcis (Sardinia) 264
194. Votive stele from Sulcis 264
195. Statue found near Athieno 265
196. Limestone statue from Cyprus 267
197. Artificial grotto near Gebal 269
198. Capital from Kition, cut from the local stone 274
199. Coin of Cyprus 276
200. Plan of the remains of the temple at Paphos 278
201. Plan of the remains of the temple at Paphos 279
202. Coin of Cyprus 281
203. The hill of Paphos, remains of a temple in the foreground 282
204. Plan of temple at Golgos 282
205. 206. Elevation of a cone found at Athieno, and section of its lower part . 284
207. Pedestal for two statues 285
208. Model of a small temple in terra-cotta 287
209. The Panaghia Phaneromeni. Plan 288
210. The Panaghia Phaneromeni. Perspective 289
211. The Amathus vase 290
212. Small model of a cistern 292
213. Handle of the Amathus vase 292
214. Coin of Cyprus 293
215. Stone step 294
216. Plan of the crypt at Curium 295
217. Gold bracelet 299
218. Coin of Malta 302
219. Hall in the temple of Hagiar Kim, at Malta • 305
220. Doorway in the temple of Hagiar Kim, at Malta 307
221. Plan of the Giganteia at Gozo 308
222. Longitudinal section through the larger temple at the Giganteia .... 309
xiv LIST OK ILLUSTRATIONS.
KK;. i> A OK
223. The cone of the Giganteia 311
224. The Giganteia 311
225. Plan of the temple of Hagiar Kim, Malta 312
226. Interior of the temple of Hagiar Kim 313
227. Decorated stone, from Hagiar Kim 314
228. Altar 315
229. Altar 316
230. Statuette 316
231. Statuette 317
232. Stele from Lilybanim 320
233. Stele from Sulcis 321
234. Lintel at Ebba 322
235- Capital at Djezza 323
236. View of the great mosque at Mecca 327
237. Plan of the rampart near Banias 337
238. The Phoenician wall near Banias 338
239. Plan of the Phoenician wall at Eryx 340
240. One of the towers of Eryx 341
241. Postern in the wall of Eryx 343
242. Postern in the wall of Eryx 344
243. Postern in the wall of Eryx 345
244. The temple and ramparts of Eryx 346
245. The wall of Motya 347
246. Plan of Lixus 349
247. The wall of Lixus 351
248. Map of the peninsula of Carthage 352
249. The triple wall of Thapsus 355
250. The great wall at Thapsus 359
25 1. Plan of the wall of Byrsa 361
252. Reservoirs of Carthage 369
253. Carthaginian coin 374
254. Rural cistern 375
255. Plan of cistern 377
256. Cross section of cistern wall 378
257. Elevation of part of cistern wall 378
258. Base of column from a portico at Larnaca 380
259. Detail of a portico at Larnaca 381
260. Plan of ancient house at Malta 381
261. View of ancient house at Malta 382
262. The mausoleum at Thugga 383
263. Angle pilaster 384
264. Profile of cornice 384
265. Present condition of the Carthaginian harbours 389
266. The harbours of Carthage according to Beule* 391
267. Arrangement of the berths according to Beule' 391
268. The harbours of Carthage according to Daux 392
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv
FIG. I'.UiE
269. Cornice moulding 393
270. Utica in the time of Caesar 397
271. Plan of the naval harbour at Utica 399
272. Admiral's palace, Utica 400
273. Restoration of the northern facade of the Admiral's palace, Utica . . . 403
274. Restoration of a lateral fagade 403
275. The mole of Thapsus 408
276. Plan of the mole of Thapsus 409
HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA
AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE riKENICIAX CIVILIZATION.
§ i. — The Situation of Syria and the Configuration of the
Phoenician Coast.
IN this history of art in antiquity, Egypt and Chaldsea occupy
a privileged place. The length at which we have dwelt upon
their art activities is justified by the fertility and originality of their
genius, by the spontaneity of their development, and, above all, by
their influence over that later stage in the progress of humanity
of which our own civilization is no more than the sequel. Egypt
-> and Chaldaea invented the methods and created the models that
awoke the plastic genius of the Greeks. After a long period of
probation that genius began, towards the time of Homer, to foster
high ambitions, and to attempt works of art in the true sense ; but
at first it borrowed more than it created ; nearly all the motives it
employed may be traced to a foreign origin.
We may recognize those motives both by their physiognomy
and their arrangement. They were invented far enough from
Corinth and Athens, far even from Miletus and Ephesus ; they
were invented in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates; and
how did they traverse the vast spaces that had to be crossed before
they could arrive upon the Ionian coasts, in Peloponnesus or Attica,
in yet more distant Latium and Etruria ? How did they contrive
VOL. n
fj
•-
2 HISTORY 01 ART IN PIKKNRIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
to fix the attention of so many half barbarous races ? Was it by
their original inventors that they were carried so far a-field ?
No. Neither Egyptians, nor Chaldaeans, nor Assyrians, had occa-
sion to hawk their own goods over the basin of the Mediterranean.
Egypt, indeed, equipped fleets and carried on a maritime commerce ;
she had none of the dread of salt water that used to be attri-
buted to her; but it was upon the Red Sea that she launched her
vessels ; it was with the tribes of Arabia and of the Somali coasts
that she had direct trade relations. There is nothing to suggest
that an Egyptian vessel, either of war or commerce, ever put out
from the mouths of the Nile and lost sight of the low shores of
the Delta on an adventurous voyage to Cyprus or Crete. As for
the Chaldaeans and the Assyrians, they did now and then succeed
in embracing the coasts of Syria in their empire, but it was as
conquerors only that they appeared in its maritime cities ; they made
no attempts to turn them into bases for further conquests ; in
modern phraseology, their flag never waved over the waters of the
Mediterranean.
There must, then, have been middlemen by whom the forms
and motives invented in Egypt and Mesopotamia were carried to
the foreign races who borrowed and used them : and these
o
middlemen must, by native faculties, by culture and by geo-
graphical position, have been naturally fitted for the task they had
to fulfil. Among all those nations of the ancient world who have
left a name in history, to which especially must we award the
honour of having rendered this great service to civilization ? We
must not, of course, forget the claims of the tribes established in
Upper Syria and Asia Minor, the Khetas, the Cappadocians, the
Phrygians, and Lydians — the chain of tribes, in fact, that con-
nected the valley of the Euphrates with the shores of the yEgaean
Sea. They received with the one hand what they gave with the
other. Through them the Greeks of Ionia became possessed of
certain myths and forms of worship, of certain processes, types
and motives, which we can track across the whole breadth of
western Asia. But Egypt could never have won its widespread
influence through their means. Land communication remained
slow, difficult, and uncertain throughout antiquity. A sandy
desert, or a chain of inhospitable mountains inhabited by savages
no less inhospitable, was enough to bar all passage to commerce.
With the sea it is another matter. It appears to separate
SYRIA AND THE PHOENICIAN COAST.
countries and races, but as a fact it unites them. As soon as man
learnt to trust to "the waste of waters" and to so combine the
powers of the sail and rudder that his barque became as docile as
a horse or camel, he could fix his eyes upon the sun and the stars
and take himself whither he pleased. As the fertilising dust is
carried by the breeze to fields far enough from that where it is
shaken from the parent stem, so ideas travel much faster, much
farther, and much more securely when they are carried over sea
by the winds than when they have to encounter all the rubs and
toils of travel by land. To establish communications between
men who are separated by vast spaces there is no go-between so
efficient as a maritime population, a population driven year by
year, by love of gain and love of adventure, to extend the ever-
widening circle of their explorations.
Such a population was at hand exactly when the Egyptians and
Mesopotamians required its good offices, their civilizations being
ripe for expansion beyond their own borders. Driven by events
that we only know by their effects, a people had established them-
selves on the Syrian coast, not far from the isthmus that unites
Africa to Asia, between the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates
and within easy reach of both. In order to reach the frontier of
Egypt, at Pelusium, not more than three or four days of a desert
in which wells were frequent had to be traversed after quitting
the last town in Syria. When they began to risk themselves at
sea, the voyage was no less short and easy Even in the days
when sailors crept along the coast, beaching their ships every
night, they did not take long to arrive at the eastern mouth of the
great African river, whence they might mount at their ease as far
into the heart of the country as they wished to go.
To reach Mesopotamia a somewhat longer journey had to be
undertaken. But the middle Euphrates throws out a great elbow
westwards, which almost brings it into touch with the frontier of
Upper Syria, and those making their way eastwards from the
coast had only to follow the easy mountain roads which existed
both north and south of the Lebanon, and to cross a well-watered
plain, before they came to the valley of the great river. They
had then only to abandon themselves to its current to arrive in
due time in the heart of Chaldaea, on the quays of that Babylon
whence numerous canals would put them in communication with
every industrial centre in Lower Mesopotamia.
4 HISTORY OK ART IN* PIKKNKMA AND ITS I)KI'I:N-DI:NCIKS.
A great future was thus assured to any tribes who should people
the region we still call by its ancient name of Syria. That region
is bounded on the west by the sea, on the south by the isthmus
that separates, or rather joins, Asia and Africa, on the west by the
desert of Arabia and the Euphrates, on the north by the southern
slopes of Amanus and Taurus. On three sides Syria was bounded
respectively by the sea, by chains of mountains and by vast
stretches of barren sand, so that the industrious communities who
occupied it could only be attacked from a few points ; from the
south, where there was no natural barrier, by the wide passes ol
the north-east, and by those narrow defiles in the north-west called
the Cilician gates. In the interior of the country, strong fortresses
capable of offering a long and stubborn resistance to the invader
could be erected on several sites which complacent nature had
provided, and as a last resource the tribes could take to their ships
and retreat either to the small islets that stud the coasr, or to the
large islands in the west, one of which, Cyprus, could be descried
on a clear day from the heights on the Syrian shore. The teeming
waters which bathed the long line of coast must soon have excited
in those who dwelt there the wish to risk themselves upon the
sea and to hoist their sails to the breeze.
A large part of the country could only be inhabited by a sea-
faring population — I mean the part squeezed in between the sea
and the slopes of the Lebanon. Elsewhere one encounters
spacious plains like the fertile fickaa, or Coulo- Syria, like the
wondrous garden that hides Damascus in its waving verdure, like
the plains of Esdraelon and the country of the Philistines. But
from Mount Carmel to the Cape of Tripoli the summits rise to a
height of some 3,000 feet, so close to the sea shore that no room
is left for agriculture, and the two great rivers that are nourished
by the springs and snows of the Lebanon, the Orontes and the
Jordan, flow north and south ; the rivers that flow to the coast
are no more than mountain torrents. The most important of them
all, that which falls into the sea between Tyre and Sidon, the
Nahr-cl-Litani, was called by the Greeks the Lcontcs, or " river of
the lion." The NaJir-cl-Kclb, or " river of the dog, ' joins the sea
north of the roads of Beyrout. Both of these are brawling
torrents and thoroughly deserve their names (see Fig. i).
Between the sea and the great buttresses of the Lebanon there
is seldom room for more than a narrow be-ich, a long ribbon of
SYRIA AND THK PHOENICIAN COAST. 5
sand divided every now and then by high and rocky capes. In
the centuries that elapsed before man learnt to modify the con-
figuration of the ground, and to make roads even along cliff-faces,
it was difficult in the last degree, it was at times even impossible,
to follow the trend of the coast, at least by land. In the autumn
Fir.. I. — The Xahr-el-Fedar.
rains, moreover, and when the snows melt in the spring, the
mountain torrents are unfordable near their mouths, while no boats
can live in them. But as civilization advanced men learnt to cut
paths, or rather ladders, in the faces of the rocky spurs that had
so long barred their way. These paths still exist. On my way
from Sour to Saint Jean d'Acre, by the Ras-el-Abiad and the Ras
6 HISTORY ov ART IN PIUKNK IA AND ITS DKPKXDKXCIES.
en-Nakourah) I made use of them, and never, even in the East,
have I journeyed by a worse route, or by one on which the
traveller is more at the mercy of his beast, whose sureness of
foot is tried at every step.
The Romans were the first to make communication easier and
more certain. At the entrance to the gorge of the Nahr-el-Kelb,
near Heyrout, the road they cut through the rock in order to
avoid the abrupt ascents of the old pass, is still in use. The
levels of this Roman road are much easier ; it doubles the cape
instead of scaling its heights. It was by the old path that
Assyrian and Egyptian armies found their way along the coast
(see Figs. 2 and 3).1
It was long enough, however, before the Romans appeared that
the tribes whose doings we have now to study settled in the
country. If they wished to penetrate into the mountains they h;id
to wait till summer, and then make their way along the beds of the
dried-up torrents ; if they wanted to turn them and follow the
coast, they could do so in many places by a narrow strip of sand,
but elsewhere the waves beat against the actual knees of the hills.
At these latter points there was no road at all, or at most a
giddy path along the face of the cliff, better fitted for goats than
men. A pedestrian accustomed to its difficulties could make use
of it with safety, but no one would dream of riding over or even
of attempting to lead a string of pack horses along such a track.
While the solid earth presented difficulties that must long have
seemed insurmountable, the sea wras open to all. It was upon the
sea that the little plains on the coast had their outlook. In these
the same configuration was repeated again and again. Here and
there the mountains retire a certain distance from the sea and
leave room for a few leagues of flat ground where houses could
rise among fields and vineyards, or for slopes on which the vine
and olive could flourish. These were sites prepared by nature for
future cities, but before the latter could come into existence, easy
circulation had to be provided for men and goods between one
canton and another. Nothing could be more simple ; the sea was
at hand ready to carry anything that would float. As soon as the
elements of navigation wefe mastered, no farther embarrassment in
1 We borrow this plan and view from an interesting article contributed by Mr. W.
S. BOSCAWEN to the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Arclueology (The Monu-
ments and Inscriptions on the Rocks at Nahr-el-Kdb, vol. vii. pp. 331-352).
SYRIA AND THE PHOENICIAN COAST.
7
the matter of locomotion between one township and another could
FIG. 2.— Plan of the passes at the Nahr-el-Kelb.
Egyptian bas-reliefs, i. vi. viii. ; Assyrian bas-reliefs, ii. iii. iv. v. vii. ix.
be felt. Except for a few stormy weeks in the year ships could
come and go, driven by the winds when they were favourable, by
S HISTORY or Aui IN I'IM.MCIA AND ii> DKI-KNOKNCIES.
the sturdy arms of rowers when the bree/e was contrary or absent
altogether ; at nightfall or at any sudden nu:nace from the sky,
they could seek the nearest haven. And havens were plentiful.
The mountain spurs which hindered land travelling were the
salvation of the mariner. On one side or the: other of each
jutting cape he found shelter from wind and wave. Here he
would ride at anchor and wait for better weather, or if the worst
came to the worst, he could beach his ship in some narrow creek
and make all snug until the tempest should have spent its force.
Many things must then have combined to lengthen a voyage ;
but time was of no great value — a few hours or a few days more
or less made no great difference. The important thing was to be
able to come and go ; to sally at will from home and to return
at pleasure. In those days the mountains were clothed to their
feet in forests which furnished splendid timber for ship-building,
and that in inexhaustible quantities, so that it was easy to
establish workshops on the shore in which the sound of the
hammers should never cease. The carpenter who built and the
mariner who sailed the ships furnished between them a bond of
union for all the inhabitants of the coast, and prevented the
isolation to which the peculiar formation of the country would
otherwise have condemned each separate group.
Even now it is mainly by the sea that the towns on the Syrian
coast communicate with each other. The only difference is that
the feluccas are now aided in the work by the steamboats that ply
between the larger ports. In other ways the ancient customs have
been preserved. No one wishing to go from Latakich to Tripoli,
from Tripoli to Beyrout, or from Beyrout to Jaffa, would go by
land, except, of course, tourists and archaeologists.
In our days the profits of the traffic go chiefly to England and
Austria, to Erance and Greece ; but it was not always so. For
many centuries it was to Syrian ports that the vessels belonged
by which the three basins into which the Mediterranean is divided
were ploughed in every direction. The beginnings \vere modest
enough. In their quest of elbow room, the tribes crept up and
down the coast, doubling, not without trepidation, the beetling
promontories with their fringe of foam. Gradually they explored
the whole coast, from Carmel to Casius ; they became familiar
with the set of the currents, with every secure anchorage and
every sheltering bay ; they learnt to read the signs of coming
"
;;f:>' •> ,; \
VOL. I.
ORIGIN OF TIII-: PHOENICIANS, i i
storms. To turn their ships' prows out into the open and to
become a people of merchants and adventurous mariners were
then only matters of time.
£ 2. — The Phoenicians ; their Origin and their First
Establishment.
According to all probability, it was touards the twentieth
century before our era — rather before that than after — that the
Phoenicians appeared in Syria ; and by the Phoenicians we mean,
with the Greeks, the peoples who settled on the coast at the foot
of Lebanon ; other tribes, their mare or less distant relations,
dwelt north, east, and south of them.1
How did they come there, and whence ? According to a
tradition gathered by Herodotus from one of their descendants,
their ancestors lived on the shores of the Persian Gulf,'2 where they
peopled the Bahrein Islands, two of which were still called Tyros
and Arados in the time of Strabo. They passed for the mother
countries of the two great towns on the Syrian coast, and we are
told that they contained temples similar in appearance to those of
Phoenicia.3 Perhaps some of the resemblances between the
Phoenicia of the Mediterranean and that of the Indian Ocean were
after-thoughts on the part of the latter, which may have thus
thought to attract curious visitors to its coasts ; but the story must
have been founded on fact. The Hebrew Scriptures agree with the
Greek historians in speaking of the great migrations that carried
into Syria, towards the period of the first Theban empire, those
1 There are no grounds for insisting upon the Greek etymologies of the word ;
which they sometimes derived from the name of the palm-tree, sometimes from that
of the colour red, which was dear to a people who long had a monopoly in the
manufacture of purple dye. It is now generally agreed that the word is a corruption
of the name given by the Egyptians to the whole bulk of the populations of Arabia
and the Persian Gulf; the country of Punt. The primitive form would seem to be
better preserved in the names Pceni, Punici, given by the Romans to those
Phoenicians of Africa with whom they were so long embroiled (see MASPERO,
Histoire ancienne, p. 169, and PH. BERGER, La Phenicie [article reprinted from
Z' 'Encyclopedic des Sciences religieuses\, p. 3).
2 HERODOTUS, ii. 89.
3 STRABO, xvi. iii. 4. PLINY, Nat. Hist. vi. 32. According to Pliny the real
name of Strabo's Tvros was Tvlos.
12 IllSTokY <>F Auf IN Plld.NICIA AM> ITS DKl'ENDENCIKS.
so called Canaanitish populations of which the Phoenicians formed
the eastern branch. Must we suppose that,, to reach their new
home, they traversed the deserts of Arabia by a line of oases, or
that they mounted the stream of the Euphrates and descended
from its upper stretches upon the lands to the west and south-
west ? We cannot tell ; all that we know is that those districts
were; conquered from the savage tribes which had occupied them,
that the new-comers took possession ot all the sites they fancied
from where Aleppo and Damascus now stand, in the north, to
the river of Egypt and the peninsula of Sinai in the south, and
that while one section threw themselves upon Egypt and founded
the power of the shepherd kings, the rest, the Phoenicians of
history, settled upon the Syrian coast between Mounts Carmel
and Casius, and there, in situations covered on the east by a
thick curtain of hills, founded many cities for which a brilliant
future was in store.
To what family of peoples did the Phoenicians belong ?
Relying upon the genealogical table in the tenth chapter of
Genesis, some have supposed them to belong to the stem of
Cush ; so that they would be cousins of the Egyptians, like the
Canaanites, who, according to the same genealogy, were also sons
of Ham.1 But on the other hand since the Phoenician inscriptions
have been deciphered it has been recognized that the Phoenician
and Hebrew languages resembled each other very narrowly — so
narrowly that they might almost be called two dialects of one
tongue. If this be so, ought we not rather to connect the
Phoenicians with that great Semitic race of which the Hebrews
are the most illustrious representatives ? We cannot say how
close the relationship may have been, but in any case the
Phoenicians must have been much more nearly connected with
the Hebrews than with the Egyptians and the other nations
whom we know as Cushites and Hamitcs. The difference of
religion on which so much insistance is placed by those who
would derive the Phoenicians and Hebrews from separate stocks,
must have resulted from differences in the material conditions and
destinies of the two nations. Habits, and, after a time, religious
1 LEPSILS, Die I'o'ikcr und Sprachen Africas. Einleitung Zitr nubischen Gram-
matik, Weimar, 1880, pp. xc. cxii. MASPERO, Histoire ancienne, pp. 147-8. PH.
BERGKR, La Pheniae, p. 2.
ORIGIN OF TIIK PHOENICIANS.
beliefs, no doubt varied greatly between Jerusalem and Tyre and
Sidon ; but arguments drawn from such evidence can hardly
stand against the identity of language. If we accept the
Cushite descent, we can only explain this identity in one way,
namely, by supposing that the Hebrews exercised sufficient
influence over the Phoenicians to induce them to abandon their
own idiom for that of the descendants of Abraham. But there
are many serious difficulties in the way of such an explanation,
which is, moreover, in conflict with all that we know of Phoenician
history.
It was only under David and Solomon that the Hebrews won
great political and military prestige in Syria, and at that time
Phoenicia had been a solidly-established state for many centuries.
We have no reason to doubt that she had also been long in full
possession of her language and written character. Moreover it is
not difficult to gather from the historical and prophetic books of
our Bible that, during the whole of the period of the kings of
Israel and Judah, both before and after the schism of the ten
tribes, the Phoenicians acted upon the Jews rather than the Jews
upon the Phoenicians. We do not find that from the coming of
David to the Captivity, the Jews made any attempt to conquer
Phoenicia or to bring her under their sovereignty in any way ;
they do not seem to have impressed upon her either their manners
or their ideas ; on the contrary, it was from Tyre that they drew
the architects and master workmen who built the temple of
Jehovah. In defiance of their own prophets they never ceased
to borrow from the same people both the images and names of
their gods and the rites in which they were worshipped. A Syrian
princess, Athaliah, reigned at Jerusalem, but there is nothing to
suggest that a Jew ever rose so high in the towns on the coast.
If not under their kings, when could the Jews have wielded any
such influence or authority over their rich and industrious neigh-
bours as to cause them to throw aside the non-Semitic idiom they
had brought from their distant fatherland and adopt Hebrew
instead ?
Search the history of Palestine from beginning to end and you
will find no stage at which such a substitution was possible ; and on
the other hand if you refuse to admit that the Phoenicians were of
the same blood as the Jews, how do you account for their speaking
and writing, not one of the idioms which we encounter at their
14 HISTORY OF ART IN PHUNKTA AND MS I)i:rr.M>K.\<n;s.
best in Africa, but a language that differs little from pure
Hebrew21
\Ve could not put aside this question of origin altogether, and
it was better that we should explain those solutions of the
problem that seemed to us best foanded." Hut whether we call
them Semites or Cushites the Phoenicians are the only nation of
the Cunaanites which can pretend to occupy a conspicuous and
well-understood place in the history of art. Nearly all the tribes
of the interior remained in their original condition of agriculturists
and nomad shepherds. The only tribe that succeeded in founding
a powerful state was that of the Khetas or Hittites, which settled
in northern Syria. We shall have occasion to return to these
Hittites who, thanks to recent discoveries, have now emerged
from the obscurity in which they were so long buried. We shall
endeavour to show that they too had an influence upon the
civilization of their western neighbours which must be taken into
1 The opinion we have here expressed is that now held by the scholar who has
most closely studied the question. M. KRNKST RKXAN began by studying the
Phoenician remains on the spot ; afterwards, in his lectures at the College dc France,
lie explained all the texts now extant, and prepared translations of them for the
Corpus Inscriptionum Ssmiticarum. He will be our chief guide in these pages. We
shall conlinually have to quote his great work, the Mission dc J'henicii (i vol. 410.,
and a folio of 70 plates, Paris, Michel Levy, 1863-74). We also owe much to the
ready liberality with which oar learned colleague has put his knowledge at our
service whenever we have had to consult him in the course of our work. We may
r.lso take this opportunity to express our obligations to M. PH. BERBER, associated
for many years with M. Kenan, in the researches undertaken for the Academic des
Inscriptions. M. Berger has given us much useful information. From the many
papers he has published on Phoenicia and Carthage we have bo; rowed even more
frequently than our foot-notes indicate.
- In many respects this ques'.ion is still very obscure. The place given to the
Canaanites in the genealogies of Genesis has been explained by the natural anti-
pathy they inspired in a people with whom they disputed the possession of Palestine,
and who expressed their hatred by making them the descendants of Ham, that is of
an ill-conditioned and accursed ancestor; " but," objects M. Bjrger, "from that
point of view the Hebrews would have done the same to the Moabites, the
Ammonites, and, especially, to the Idumaeans and Amalekites, their traditional
enemies " (La Phcnicie, p. 2}. But as a fact they consented to recognize those
detested tribes as their kinsmen. We do not under-estimate the force of the
objection, although we cannot allow it to stand before the great fact of the identity
of language. In his Orpines dc /' Uistoire. M. Fr. Lenormant has not yet discussed
the question. He has begun an examination of the ethnographical tables in the
tenth chapter of Genesis, but in his second volume he has only got as far as the
family of Japhet. (M. Fr. Lenormant has died since these words were in print, and
his Origines de I ' Hiitoiie remains a fragment. — F.u. )
ORIGIN OF THE PIKENICIANS.
account. But even when science has discovered the key to those
inscriptions which are still mute, the Hittites will never loom so
large as the Phoenicians in the great picture of the progress of
human civilization.
Phoenicia takes up but a narrow space on the map ; it was
about 130 miles from north to south, by a few miles wide at the
broadest part ; but its ships carried the products of its own
workshops, as well as of those of Egypt and Chald^ea, to the
utmost limits of the ancient world ; by its models and the
knowledge of its processes it acted on the intelligence of every
country to which its merchants made their way. Scholars are not
all agreed as to the force of that influence and the extent of its
r">
effects, but none of them dispute the great importance of the
Phoenicians as manufacturers and as agents of distribution.
Nothing that concerns such a people is without interest, and in
order properly to understand the part they played in the work of
civilization we must begin by making ourselves acquainted with
the mode in which their cities sprang up and developed, with
their political institutions and their religious beliefs.
The first Egyptian documents to mention the Phoenicians date
from the eighteenth dynasty, or from a period sixteen to seventeen
centuries before our era.1 If we allow two or three centuries,
which is none too much, for these tribes to explore the country,
to choose sites for their towns and to build their walls, we find
ourselves carried back to the nineteenth or twentieth century for
their first appearance in Syria — which is very near the date to
which we believe the invasion of the Canaanites should be
1 The report of an Egyptian officer who visited the basin of the Dead Sea in the
time of the twelfth Theban dynasty is still extant. No Canaanitish tribe is
mentioned in it (FR. LENORMANT, Manud de FHisloire andenne, vol. iii. p. 9).
On the other hand, in the account of an imaginary journey made by an Egyptian
functionary into Syria towards the end of the reign of Rarneses II., an account
contained in a precious papyrus of the British Museum, the hero, who penetrated
as far as Helbon, the Aleppo of to-day, comes back by the Phoenician coast; he
mentions Gebal, Beryta, Sidon, Sarepta, A vat ha, whose ruins now bear the name of
Adloun, and he finally arrives at " the maritime Tyre," which he describes as a
tovvnlet perched on a rock amid the waves. "Water is taken to it in boats," he
says, "and the sea is full of fishes'* (FR. LKNORMANT, ibid, p. 34). Mr. Lieblein
thinks he has found traces of the Phoenicians in Egypt as eaily as the sixth dynasty
(Proceedings of /he Society of Biblical Archeology, 1882; p. 108) ; but the presump-
tions he invokes in favour of his hypothesis do not seem to give it any high degree
of probability.
1 6 HISTOXY 01- AKT IN PIKKNK i.\ AND i rs DEPENDENCIES.
assigned. But no chronology that cm be called certain or even
very probable can be given for the early years of Phoenicia, any
more than for those of Egypt or Chalchea.1
All that we can affirm with certainty is that when the great
Theban Pharaohs began their Syrian wars, the Phoenicians were
already in possession of the Syrian coast and had founded most of
those cities whose names are encountered in their history (see
Fig. 4)." Taking them in their order from north to south these
were Aradus or Arvad (Ruad). Marath (Ann-it), Simyra, Arka,
Gebal, the Byblos of the Greeks (Gcbeyl\ Berytos (Bey rout], Sidon
(Satdii), Sarepta (Sarfend), Tyre (Sour], Accho (Acre or St. Jean
(f Acre), and Joppa (Jaffa)- All these sites were so well chosen
that hardly one of them is now deserted. Even when the country
was most completely disorganized by wars of race and religion,
by fanaticism and by bad government, nearly all these cities kept
their inhabitants. Except at Beyrout their population is, of
course, very far from being what it was in antiquity, but it has
never fallen so low that Tyre and Sidon, Acre and Joppa have
ceased to be markets of some importance and the chief towns of
their districts. Still more significant is it that during the twenty
centuries which have seen that stretch of coast pass under so
many masters, not a single new centre of urban life and commerce,
not a town that can be called modern, has been established. The
ancient cities of the C.maanites are still all the country possesses
and they are known to the modern world by names in which two
thousand years have worked but little change.
The national tradition, preserved in cosmogonic form by
Sanchoniathon, made Berytos and Gebal the two oldest es-
tablishments on the coast/' Gebal, indeed, boasted of being the
1 According to HKROUOTUS, the Syrians, when they received the visit of the
historian, told him that their town had been inhabited and their temple of Hercules
built for 2,300 years, which would place the founding of the city about the middle
of the twenty eighth century r,.c. From this statement, however, we may bj
permitted to take off something for local vanity. Tyre had become the most
important city in Phoenicia, and it would endeavour to exaggerate its age in order
to make people forget, if possible, that Sidon had reason to boast of a greater
antiquity and of a more venerable premiership.
2 This map and the next (fig. 10) are borrowed from M. MASTERO'S Hiatoire
ancienne. We have introduced some slight changes into them which our readers
will readily understand when they remember the different aims of our work and
M. Maspero's history.
3 Upon Sanchoniathon and his translator. Philo of Byblos. as well as upon the
FIG. 4. — Syria in the time of the Egyptian domination.
VOL. I.
D
ORIGIN OF THE PHCENICIANS. 19
oldest city in the world ; it had been built, according to the story,
by the god El, at the beginning of time. At first the natives of
Gebal seem to have exercised a real authority over the rest of the
Phoenicians,1 but owing to events which now escape us a city
farther to the south, Sidon, soon rose to the first rank ; in Genesis
Sidon is already spoken of as the first-born of Canaan.2 In the
beginning it was no more than a village of fishermen, as its name
Tsidon, " a fishery," proves. "It was at first confined to the
southern slope of a small promontory jutting out obliquely
towards the south-west. The famous harbour is formed by a
low chain of rocks running parallel to the shore for some
hundreds of yards and touching the northern extremity of the
peninsula. The neighbouring plain is well provided with water
and covered with those gardens which have given to the town
the sobriquet of the flowery Sidon."
Sidon soon had two rivals, Arvad on the north and Tyre on the
south. Arvad was built on an island at some distance from the
main land. "It is," says Strabo, " a rock beaten on all sides by
the sea, and about seven stades in circumference. It is entirely
covered with dwellings, and the population is still so thick that
the houses are all many stories high. The inhabitants are provided
with drinking water partly by cisterns, partly by a supply brought
from the opposite coast." In the centre of the channel between
the island and main land there was a strong spring bubbling up
through the sea water. In times of siege, when the cisterns had
been emptied, the inhabitants turned to this spring and obtained
supplies of water from it by the help of skilful divers.5 The
people of Arvad made themselves masters of the strip of coast
that faced their island ; Gabala, Paltos, Karne, Marath and Simyra
were dependent upon them, and it would seem that for a time
value of those fragments which have come down to our time, see M. KENAN'S
Memoire sur /' Origine etle Caractcre rentable deF Histoire phcnicienne quiporte le Norn
de Sanchoniathon (Memoires de F Academic des Inscriptions, new series, 1868, vol. xxiii.
part ii.). Sanchoniathon (Sanchon Jathon = "the god Sanchon has given") must
have written in Phoenician, in the time of the Seleucidae, about the second or
third century before our era. He must therefore have been a contemporary, or
little removed from it, of Manetho and Berosus-^about the time of Hadrian. Philo
must have made a free translation of the work of Sanchoniathon into Greek.
1 MOVERS, Die Phonizer. vol. ii. part i. pp. 1-4. 2 Genesis x. 15.
3 MASPERO, Histoire ancienne, p. 190. 4 STRABO, xvi. ii. 13.
5 Strabo gives a description of the way in which this feat was performed.
20 HISTORY or ART IN Pun NICIA AND ITS DKI-KN-DKNCIES.
their supremacy extended to Hnmath, on the other side of the
mountains, in the valley of the Orontes.
While the Arvaclites thus enjoyed an uncontested supremacy in
the north, the Syrians dominated, in the same fashion, the: whole
of southern Phu-nicia, between the mouth of the Leontes and the
country of the Philistines. For many centuries the other towns of
that region were hardly more than provincial branches, so to speak,
of Tyre. Tsor means a rock, and the modern name Sour is
therefore more like the- ancient name than the Greek Ti'pos, or
Tyre, which has been put into general use by the classic writers.
Like those of Arvad, the founders of Tyre chose an island for the
site of their to an. When they established themselves upon it it
must have been separated from the main land by about three-
quarters of a mile of water, which was quite enough for defence ;
it put Tyre out of reach of any enemy but one who should be
master of the sea. To compare small things with great, Tyre
had a geographical situation analogous to that in which so much
of the strength of England lies. She could defy oriental con
querors like the kings of Xineveh and Babylon, and it was not
until Alexander joined the island to the main land by an artificial
isthmus that she fell. The creation of this causeway had other
effects than the destruction of Tyre's impregnability. It arrested
the passage of the sand which the currents swept along the coast,
so that the harbours of the Phoenician city silted rapidly up, and
in these days there is but one left, that which used to be called
the Sidon harbour, which can receive a few small vessels. As for
the other, the Egyptian harbour, it is so completely obliterated
that modern explorers grope for its site, and even those who have
most carefully examined the peninsula are not in accord as to
where it was situated.1 A sketch that we borrow from M. Renan
shows what he thinks as to the position of the two harbours'2
(Fig. 5)-
The rocky island, or rather the group of rocky islands which
were afterwards united and enlarged artificially to form the soil of
1 Upon this difficult question of topography see KENAN'S Mission de Phenicie, iv.
ch. i. M. Renan recites and discusses the opinions of his predecessors, MM. de
Berton, Poulain de Bossay, Movers, and others who have tried to throw light upon
the same problem.
1 The shaded spaces show the ground filled in by Hiram, the lines of asterisks
the actual trend of the shore.
ORIGIN OF THE PIICF.NICIANS. 21
Phoenician Tyre, gave but a narrow site for a town. On the south
side the sea seems to have now taken back to itself a strip of
ground that had been reclaimed in ancient times by embankments
and retaining walls. As at Arvad, the houses were very high and
packed very close.1 Allowing for all possible economy of space
it is difficult to see how the island of Tyre can ever have held
more than about twenty-five thousand souls.'2 This seems aston-
ishing, but we must remember, in the first place, that the insular
town had a corresponding city on the main land which bore the
same name, and was no doubt at least as populous as the mari-
time Tyre ; and secondly, that the highly cultivated plain in the
FIG. 5. — Tyre before the siege of Alexander. From Renan.
neighbourhood of the former supported and employed a large
population of peasants and slaves.0' In times of peace, therefore,
the Tyrian population was doubled, or perhaps trebled, by this
continental faubourg and its smiling environs. And again we
must not forget that maritime and commercial cities on islands
often have an importance out of all proportion to their extent.
M. Renan cites the example of St. Malo, which resembles Tyre
1 STRABO, xvi. ii. 23. •• It is said that the houses there are very high and have
more stories than in Rome."
'- The surface of this island has been estimated at 576,508 square metres.
3 Mission de Phenicie, iv. ch. ii.
22 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
very much in situation, and at one time was a maritime centre
almost of the first order, while it managed to give house room to
more than 12,000 people on a surface less than that of the Syrian
island by more than two-thirds.1
As we reflect upon all the advantages offered by the site of
Tyre, at once close to the main land and separated effectively from
it, we are tempted to believe that it must have been one of the
first points occupied by the Phoenicians, who had already, in the
Persian Gulf, learnt the safety that attends life on an island.
Tyre was perhaps as old, then, as Sidon, but Sidon was the first to
rise into prosperity. Neither in the tenth chapter of Genesis nor
in Homer do we hear a word of Tyre."
\Ve have now glanced rapidly down the Phoenician coast from
Arvad to Joppa ; we have called the attention of our readers to its
principal cities, to those which have left the most conspicuous
traces in history, and in doing so we have, we hope, given them
some idea as to what 'Phoenicia really was. It was not a compact
nation occupying a large and continuous territory. It had no
resemblance to such countries as Egypt, Chaldaea and Assyria.
To describe it accurately, it was no more than a series of ports
each of which was set in a more or less narrow frame of cultivated
land. These towns, situated one or two days' march from each
other, were the centres of a life wholly municipal, like that of a
Greek city. \Yhen their independence was menaced by the
formidable monarchies of Egypt or Assyria, of Babylon, Persia or
Macedonia, even the pressure of a common danger could not make
them unite for common defence. The only bonds between the
different townships were those due to identity of origin, language,
and written character, and those arising from community of
interests in business, from similarity of social habits and religious
beliefs.
It would seem that there were three distinct Phoenician
communities until the Macedonian conquest, and especially the
1 Afission de Fhcnicie, p. 553. Perhaps a more apt comparison, at least to
English readers, would he one with Venice, which, thanks to a situation similar in
all essentials to that of Tyre, was in the middle ages enabled to hold a position in
the world differing very little from that enjoyed by the Syrian city fifteen hundred
years before. — ED.
2 STRABO notices this in the case of Homer, xv. ii. 22.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 23
diffusion of Greek culture, came to efface all differences. First
there was that of Arvad, which is hardly mentioned by the Greek
and Roman historians at all ; it was, however, very ancient, for
the Arvadites figure among the sons of Canaan in the genealogies
of Genesis,1 but we know hardly anything of its history. The
oblivion in which it has rested is explained by the situation of this
group of towns. It was masked, so to speak, by the Lebanon,
which cut it off from lower Syria and the valley of the Orontes.
It was thus a little aside from the path of those Egyptian and
Assyrian conquerors whose disputes for the possession of the
country were so often renewed. Moreover it appears that the
Arvadites leaving to others the risks and profits that attended
voyages to very distant countries, were contented with a coasting
trade to Cyprus and Rhodes, and along the southern shores of
Asia Minor. Thanks to this prudent commerce the whole
district of Arvad became very prosperous. To the south of the
island the coast described a wide gulf or bay, not unlike that of
Genoa, and bordered with many rich villages and small towns, of
which Marath was the chief.2 The rich shipowners of Arvad had
their country houses, their farms, and their tombs upon the main
land (see Fig. 6). According to Strabo their island was no more
than seven stades, or about 1,416 yards, in circumference; it was
therefore small enough for the crowded masses of human beings
who found shelter behind its formidable walls (Fig. /) ; there was
no room in it for the dead.
Gebal, or Byblos was the centre of another Phoenician community
which preserved its own individuality until the last days of antiquity.
There religious sentiment seems to have been more intense and to
have played a more important part than anywhere else in Phoenicia.
"Byblos," says M. Renan, "appears more and more to me to
have been a sort of Jerusalem of the Lebanon.''3 Both in language
and in bent of mind the Giblites seem to have been more like
the Hebrews than the rest of the Phoenicians. In the great
Byblos inscription, which is one of the most precious monuments
of Semitic epigraphy, the King Jehawmelek (about 500 B.C.)
addresses his great goddess, the lady Baalat-Gebail, in terms
which might well, with some exceptions, have issued from the lips
1 Genesis x. 15-18. 2 RENAN, Mission de Phenicie, p. 21.
3 Ibid., p. 215.
24 HISTORY OK ART IN PHIKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
of a pious Jew. lie speaks of himself, in the Bible words, as "a
Fir.. 6. — Tomb at Amrit. From Kenan.
just king, and fearing God." In later times it was at Byblos and
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticaruin, vol. i. part i. no. i, and plate i. M. PH.
BERGER has given a translation of the Jehawmelek inscription into French ; it will
be found in the lecture he gave at the Sorbonne under the title " Les Inscriptions
Semitiques et PHistoire " (Bulletin de I Association, zyth February, 1883, p. 13).
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS.
in its dependent valleys, that the mysteries of Astarte and Adonis
were celebrated, as well as the licentious rites of Tammouz, which
were so popular in Syria throughout the Grseco-Roman period.
Finally we come to the Phoenician community par excellence,
that of Tyre and Sidon, the southernmost of all. We there find the
peculiar genius of the race at its greatest development, its taste
for trade and industry, its love of maritime adventure, its readiness
to accommodate itself to new conditions, its marvellous skill in
opening relations with the most savage tribes and in implanting new
wants in their breasts. In all that we shall have to say of the
FIG. 7. — The walls of Arvacl. From Rcnnn.
rapid expansion of Phoenicia and of the influence it exercised over
the peoples of the west, we must be understood to speak of these
two great cities, and especially of Tyre. The other Phoenician
cities may have supplied sailors for the Tynan ships and cargoes
for their holds,1 but it was Sidon first, and then, with increased
decision and enterprise, it was Tyre, that took the initiative and
1 Addressing Tyre, EZEKIEL says (xxvii. 8): '•'•The inhabitants of Zidon and
Arvad were thy mariners : thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy
pilots," which confirms what we say as to the division of the work. Tyre recruited
her marine along the whole coast, but she herself furnished it with officers.
VO1. I. !•;
26 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
general direction of the movement. The captains of those two
great cities were the earliest to press on towards the setting sun,
till first the pillars of Hercules and afterwards still more distant
points were left astern of their ships.
We know very little of the institutions of the Phoenician cities ;
we know practically nothing of their political and social life. So
far as we can guess they had a political system analogous to those
of several cities of modern Europe in which similar ambitions
and habits of life found a place, such as Genoa, Venice and
the Hanse towns. Wherever the exigencies of a great maritime
commerce tend to concentrate capital in a few hands, and to
enable the more capable citizens to accumulate huge fortunes,
there we always find a powerful aristocracy. This aristocracy
sometimes leaves an appearance of power to popular assemblies
or hereditary princes, but by right of its great wealth and superior
intelligence it always keeps the reality of power in its own hands.
Between such cities as those we have named, the chief difference
lies in the varying exclusiveness of the aristocracy by which they
are ofoverned. In some it closes its ranks to new-comers and
o
tends to oligarchy ; in others it opens them and welcomes a
certain measure of democracy.
It is difficult to say to which side Sidon and Tyre inclined.
We are better informed, or rather we are a little less ill informed,
as to the great African colony of Tyre, Carthage, and perhaps
we may venture to assume that the daughter inherited a good
deal of the mother's constitution. In the light of such an analogy
we should say that the system of the Phoenician cities tended
strongly to oligarchy. The inscriptions and the Greek historians,
tell us, however, that they had kings. At Arvad we find a
dynasty in which the names of Aniel and Jerostratus alternate
with each other. At Sidon there was an ancient royal family
whose origin must have been coeval with that of the city ; its
reign was interrupted more than once ; but at moments of crisis
its existence was remembered, and some member of the ancient
house was sought out to put an end to intestine quarrels and the
contests of pretenders. The life of Tyre seems to have been
more troubled than that of Sidon. Tradition has handed down
to us the names of several of her kings, but as a rule she seems,
like the Carthaginians and the Jews before the time of Saul, to
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 27
have preferred suffetes or judges, two of whom held power
at once.
But whatever title they enjoyed, whether they were hereditary
princes or consuls appointed for a time or for life, their power
must always have been more than a little precarious. Remember
the doges of Venice and Genoa ! the true masters of the city
were the heads of the principal families, or, to speak more
accurately still, of the chief commercial houses. In Phoenicia, as at
Carthage and in the Italian republics, the creators of the national
wealth and the employers of the national labour formed, under
one name or another, a species of senate.1 They all had ex-
perience of affairs and habits of command. Each of them
counted his ships by dozens, and his sailors, workmen, and agents
by hundreds. One of these merchants would have a monopoly of
trade to some country far larger than Phoenicia ; another might
work tin or gold mines in some distant island of the north or
west. The interests of the nation were therefore bound up with
those of the shipowners, who offered it a continually widening field
for its energies, and with those of its manufacturers, who provided
the materials for profitable exchanges. There was no question
bearing upon the future prosperity of the people in which the
rich merchants and shipowners of the country — who knew per-
sonally every shore and every nation of the Mediterranean — were
not the best guides, and a council composed of such men could
not fail, in time, to gather all real power into its hands. It was
in such a council that all questions of importance were discussed
and decided.
Even when they had kings the Phoenician cities were in reality
small aristocratic republics. It wTas in Phoenicia that municipal
liberty made its first appearance in the ancient world and that
it first gave evidence of its inherent power. It created what the
great oriental states, or rather agglomerations of men, had never
known, namely, the citizen, the individual citizen, full of pride in
the independence of his narrow fatherland, full of ambition for
1 ARISTOTLE, who was a great admirer of Carthage, insists upon the oligarchic
character of her constitution and upon the importance it gave to wealth and to those
who possessed it (Politics, ii. viii. 5). " It was the opinion of the Carthaginians
that he who should exercise public functions should have not only great qualities but
also great riches ; they thought that a man without fortune would not have the
leisure necessary to make him successful as a governor of men."
28 HISTORY ov ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
himself and for her. By enforcing on each individual a sense of
his own personal value, this regime made him capable at certain
critical moments of extraordinary devotion and energy. " Tyre
was the first town to defend its autonomy against those redoubt-
able monarchies which, from their seats on the Tigris and
Euphrates, threatened to extinguish all life on the shores of
the Mediterranean. When all the rest of Phoenicia had bent to
the tempest, the dwellers on this isolated rock alone held the
mighty Assyrian machine in check, and after supporting hunger
and thirst for years had their reward in seeing the hosts of
Shalmaneser and Nebuchadnezzar decamp from the neighbouring
plain. A modern traveller cannot stand upon the mole which has
made Tyre a peninsula without remembering with emotion that
she was once the last bulwark of liberty."1
Thanks to this heroic resistance Tyre appears to the eyes of
the historian the chief representative of the ambitions of Phoenicia
and of the part she was called on to fill in the world ; but she was
not the first to open the sea routes ; and even when every distant
harbour was filled with her ships, even when her sailors excelled
all their rivals in courage and enterprise, they were never alone in
the work. Phoenicia never had what we should call a capital.
During the Roman period Tyre and Sidon disputed the title of
metropolis, that is, of mother city and foundress of Phoenician
civilization.2 Tyre could boast of the more glorious services,
Sidon of the greater antiquity. The earliest maritime enterprises
and the first factories established in foreign countries dated from
the hegemony of Sidon. Like all the rest of Phoenicia, Sidon had
accepted without resistance the sovereignty of the Theban
Pharaohs, when they were masters of Syria ; but the tribute
paid to them by the Phoenicians was no heavy price to pay
for the right of frequenting the Delta ports. The relations thus
established with Egypt secured, in fact, a double monopoly to the
Phoenicians. Almost everything drawn by Egypt from the
markets of Asia, whether raw material or manufactured articles,
passed through their hands ; while, per contra, the export trade of
the Nile valley was carried on almost entirely through them ;
from such a state of things, clever traders like the Phoenicians
must have reaped enormous profits. Moreover the empire of
1 RENAN, Mission de Phenide, p. 574. - STRABO, xvi. ii. 22.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 29
Thothmes and Rameses was then the first military power of the
world, and it must have been a great advantage for the Phoenicians
to be able to claim at need the protection of those princes or of
their generals. On the high seas they might, as we should phrase
it, fly the Egyptian flag, and cover themselves with its prestige.1
Favoured thus by a vassalage which hardly affected their
freedom, the Sidonians began by visiting all the eastern coasts
of the Mediterranean. In the north they established themselves
upon the southern littoral of Asia Minor ; they took up strong
positions in the islands of Cyprus and Crete, whence it was easy
to make the coasts of Rhodes and the Sporades on the one hand,
and of the Cyclades on the other, without losing the last glimpse of
land.2 They seem to have appeared very early at Thera
(Santorini), at Melos (Milo), and at many other points in the
archipelago. They may even have mounted thence to the
Thracian islands, to Thasos, whose mines they worked so long.:i
We may even believe that they passed the Hellespont and
penetrated to the Euxine, to bring from its farther shores the
copper and iron of the Chalybes, and the tin of the Caucasus.
In no part of the Hellenic main-land was their influence more
strongly felt than in Bceotia. This is proved by the myth of
Cadmus, or " the Oriental " (from kedem, east), who is said to
have imported the alphabet into Greece, and to have founded
the city of Thebes.4 In the Peloponnesus, their presence is to
be traced in Argolis ; but it was in the island of Cythera, off
Laconia, that they were chiefly established. There they set up
1 On the presence of the Phoenicians in Egypt and the part they played there,
see the interesting observations of BRUGSCH (Histoire de CEgypte, pp. 142-150). He
shows that the Tyrians were something more than stranger merchants kept outside
the ordinary framework of Egyptian society. In papyri dating from the nineteenth
dynasty there are many examples of Semitic names borne by officials of Pharaoh's
court. The same writer shows that a certain number of gods of Asiatic origin were
then introduced into the Egyptian pantheon. Of these the chief were Reshep,
Bes, Kadesh, and Anta.
2 DIODORUS has preserved the tradition of these relations between Rhodes and
the east. He makes Danaus and the Egyptians, Cadmus and the Phoenicians visit
that island (v. Iviii. i, 2). According to his story Cadmus left there a great bronze
lebes, or cauldron, covered with Phoenician characters, as a mark of his visit.
3 HERODOTUS, ii. 44 ; vi.
4 Upon the establishment of the Phoenicians in Boeotia, see especially M. FR.
LENORMANT'S paper entitled La Legende de Cadmus et les Etablissements phcnidens
en Grece (8vo, 1867, Levy).
30 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
factories whence their merchandize could flow readily into all the
markets of the neighbouring peninsula.
Emboldened by success the Sidonians ventured to brave the
terrors of the open sea, and penetrated into the second basin of the
Mediterranean, the basin bounded on the west by Italy and
Sicily. In Africa they built Utica and Kambc, on the site that
was afterwards to become famous as that of Carthage ; they
braved the long rollers of the Adriatic, they touched at certain
points in southern Italy and Sicily, and they took possession of
Malta and Gozo, where they found excellent harbours of refuge in
which their ships could rest and refit.1
About 1000 or 900 B.C. the supremacy passed from Sidon to
Tyre.2 Taken by the Philistines and sacked, the former town
received a blow from which she took long to recover, but
she had done so much for the interests and glory of Phoenicia
that for a long time, both in Syria and in the east, the words
Phoenician and Sidonian were looked upon as convertible terms.
In their official acts the princes who reigned at Tyre called them-
selves kings of the Sidonians.3 The first Tyrian kings of whom
history says anything are Abibaal, the contemporary of David, and
his son Hiram, the friend of Solomon. We find the names of
several more in the Hebrew Scriptures and in the writings of
the Greek and Roman historians, but their probable dates and
sequence are often difficult to establish. It is certain, however,
that Tyre continued the work of Sidon, and that, with greater
energy and on a wider scale, the Tyrian colonies multiplied on
the more fertile parts of the North African coast, and became rich
and populous cities ; among them were Hippo, Hadrumetium,
Leptis, and, towards the year 800 B.C. " the new city," Kart-hadast,
which the Greeks called Carchedon and the Romans Carthage.
o
Thanks to her splendid situation Carthage developed rapidly ;
but she never forgot that she was the daughter of Tyre. Every
year a solemn embassy left the colony to sacrifice in the temple of
Melkart, the most august of the metropolitan shrines.4 After a
successful war Carthage sent a tithe of the spoil to the same
1 DIODORUS tells us that Malta and Gozo were colonized by the Phoenicians, but
he does not tell us when (v. xii. 3, 4).
2 JUSTIN, xviii. 3.
3 PH. BERGER, La Phcnicie, \\ 7.
4 POLYBIUS, xxxi. xx. 9, 12 ; CfKiiis, iv. ii. 8; DiODORUS, xx. xiv. i.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS.
temple.1 If the two cities never combined for any great political
action or even to resist a common enemy, their abstention was
due to the distaste of the Phoenicians for such methods of work ;
but between the merchants of Tyre and those of Carthage close
and intimate relations sprang up wherever they met. They were
in continual correspondence, and at a word or glance they would
combine to defeat the rivalry of foreign traders, such as the
Greeks and Etruscans, and to keep profitable transactions to
themselves. There was no necessity for agreements in writing
or for binding oaths. Their co-operation was founded upon
community of blood, of language and religion, of habits; and,
above all, on that strongest of all ties, community of loves, hates,
and interests.
In spite of the increasing prosperity of Carthage, Tyre remained
for two centuries more the richest and most powerful of Phoenician
cities. By the time its great African colony was founded Tyre
had already begun to pervade the westernmost basin of the
Mediterranean ; she had visited all its shores and multiplied
naval stations upon them. The great antiquity of the commercial
relations between Italy and Tyre is proved by the words Serranus,
SarraniLs, which survived in the Latin language down to the
classic period ; 2 they are a corruption of the true Semitic form of
the word Tyre, Tsor. Tyrius, a corruption from Serranus, did
not begin to come into general use at Rome till much later, when
the Latins had come under the influence of the Greeks, who had
turned Tsor into Tyros (Tvpos}. The presence and persistence of
the form Serramis proves that the former people had been in close
connection with Phoenicia, through the maritime trade of Tyre, '
before intimate relations had sprung up between the natives of
Italy and the Greeks. In the course of their movement west-
ward the ships of Tyre put into the ports of the great island of
Sardinia, where they found several useful metals in abundance.
Their harbour was the magnificent anchorage of Caralis, now
1 JUSTIN, xviii. 7 ; DIODORUS, xx. xiv. 2.
2 VIRGIL, Georgic II. 505 :
" Hie petit excidiis urbem miserosque Penates
Ut gemma bibat et Serrano dormiat ostro."
3 We take this observation from W. Helbig's interesting paper on the discoveries
made a few years ago at Prseneste (Cenni sopra Varte fenicia, p. 210, in the Ann ales
de t Institut de Correspondance Archeologique, 1878, pp. 197-257).
32 HISTORY or ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Cagliari, and they founded stations on the western coast which
afterwards became the towns of Nora and Tharros.
From these ports the coasts of Spain could be easily reached,
either by hugging the shores of Mauritania* or by way of the
Balearic Islands. To the Phoenicians the chief attraction of Spain
lay in its mines, of which the more accessible seams had already per-
haps been worked by the indigenous races. By following the coast
southward and westward the Tyrian seamen would at last arrive
at Calpe, whence they would look out on a boundless and unknown
sea, suggesting that they had at last reached the end of the habit-
able world. The fears that seized them have sent an echo down even
to our times. They could not repress the misgivings they felt at
the long rollers of the Atlantic and at the swing of its tides ; they
hesitated on the threshold of the unknown. According to a tradition
long current at Gades, it was only after having twice retreated that
they at last nerved themselves to pass the straits and to land on
the other side.1 A third expedition, led by a bolder captain,
founded on a small island close to the main-land the colony which
was afterwards to become famous as Gadira, Gades and Cadiz.'
By its situation and its houses tightly packed into a narrow space,
Gadira must have reminded its founders of Tyre and Arvad. It
became a fruitful nursery of hardy sailors and rapidly attained a
prosperity that still excited the admiration of Strabo in the first
century of our era.3
Its insular site made this advanced post secure enough, while
its proximity to the main land made business easy. The
Phoenician merchants soon established intimate relations with the
people of Betica, the Turtes, Turditani or Turdules of the Greek
and Latin historians. It has sometimes been suggested that a
connection should be sought between the name of these people
and the word Tarshish, which was certainly borrowed by the
Hebrew writers from the Phoenicians.4 We have some reason to
believe, however, that at first the word Tarshish was applied by
the Syrian navigators to southern Italy ; with time it became
1 STRABO, iii. v. 5,
2 From the Phoenician word gfidir, a "closed and fortified place." Sec FR.
LENORM ANT'S Manuel de FHistoire aticienne, vol. iii. p. 58.
3 STRABO, iii. i. 8 ; v. 3 ; DIODORUS, v. xx. 2.
4 Genesis x. 4 ; i Chronicles \. 7; Psalms Ixxii. 10 ; ISAIAH xxiii. 6, 10, 14;
Ixxi. 19; EZEKIEL xxvii. 12.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 33
displaced, and as the horizon of the Phoenicians retired westwards
so did the shores known to them by that name, which was never,
in truth, very definite in its application. At the period when
Phoenician power was at its zenith it signified generally the lands
by which the Mediterranean was bordered on the west, just as to
Europeans the West Indies meant for centuries the whole conti-
nent of America, north and south, with the islands which cluster
about it.1
But whatever the origin of the name may have been, it is
certain that Tarshish occupied a very large space in the minds
of the Phoenicians. " They called those vessels that went long
voyages ships of Tarshish, just as the English called theirs
Indiamen even when they did not go near India." These ships
must have been more solidly built and of greater tonnage than
those engaged in the coasting trade with the ports of Syria and
the y£gaean, but unfortunately it is not their portraits that we must
recognize in those sculptured reliefs of the Sargonid period in
which Phoenician galleys are represented.3 Some of these by
their rounded stems and sterns seem to be cargo-carriers (Fig. 8),
while others, with a sharp beak or ram, are " men-of-war " (Fig. 9) ;
we can point to no monument on which the form and aspect of
1 FR. LENOTJMANT, Tarschisch, Etude d' Ethnographic et de GcograpJ.ie liblique
(Revue des Questions historiques, 1882, ist July).
2 PH. BERGER, La Ph'enicie, p. 32. The phrase "ships of Tarshish " is thus employed
in several passages of the Bible (i Kings x. 23; 2 Chronicles ix. 31) where
actual voyages to Tarshish cannot be referred to, as the question of the moment is
the traffic with Ophir, which was carried on by the Red Sea. We may conclude that
the expression has the same generic force in this verse from EZEKIEL (xxvii. 25) :
" The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market ; and thou wast replenished,
and made very glorious in the midst of the seas."
3 We are enabled to recognize Phoenician galleys in these sculptured ships by the
words of the inscription known as The Annals of Sennacherib, where it is related
that in order to reach the rebels from Lower Chaldasa, who had taken refuge in the
land of Elam, Sennacherib crossed the Persian Gulf in vessels of Syria. The truth
of this is, in all probability, that he caused a flotilla to be built by Phoenician
carpenters, on the Lower Euphrates, whence he could descend towards the "great
sea of the rising sun." The bas-reliefs discovered by Sir Henry Layard must be
understood as dealing with the return of the rebels as captives. " The men of
Bit-Yaken with their gods and the men of Elam, I captured them, says Senna-
cherib, I did not leave one. I embarked them in vessels and transported them
to the opposite shore." M. Oppert has furnished us with a translation of this
text, which appears in Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, vol. i. p. 40,
line 31 et seq.
VOL. I. 1'"
34 HISTORY OK ART IN PIUKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the ship of Tarshish, the PluL-nician Indiaman or clipper, has been
preserved.
The profits of the trade with Spain were so large and so nimble
that the whole eastern coast of the peninsula was soon studded
FIG. 8. — Phoenician merchant galley. From Layard.
with Phoenician settlements. The chief of these were Malaca
(Malaga], Sex (Motril), Abdera (Almcria), and Cartei'a (Al-
%eciras) ; others of less importance might be named, or, at least,
^yiJffiij^i^ JlO
I-IG. 9. — Phoenician war galley. From Layard.
their situation guessed. The valleys of the interior and the fertile
plains of the province we now call Andalusia supplied merchandise
of various kinds to the Tyrian venturers, but the chief staple of the
i*~r^ fr^a^ . ••$* Vflii •, u
>-^s v^vic^-^1 • \ i ->ci^
O:ho^r^vr., •- t vrC= c- **J>M\ <•
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 37
trade was metal. " Tarshish," says Ezekiel in his address to Tyre,1
" Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind
of riches ; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs."
Of all these metals doubtless the most important to the Phoenicians,
and the most profitable, was tin. In the ancient world no sub-
stance was more universally employed than bronze, and without
tin there can be no bronze. It was therefore an enormous
advantage to the Phoenicians to have made themselves masters
of the source whence that metal was to be obtained. The length
of a sea voyage has far less effect upon the cost of merchandize
than that of a land journey, so that throughout the Levant the tin
brought over sea from Spain could be sold cheaper than the same
metal brought over-land from central Asia. Such an advantage
gave Phoenicia the control of the market and insured the fortune
of her merchants.2
We give a map which will enable the reader to see at a glance
how far the Phoenicians had carried their commerce in the eighth
century B.C. The names of their principal settlements and naval
stations are given, with every indication necessary to help to a
clear comprehension of the several parts played by Tyre and
Sidon in the creation of a great chain of colonies, of which some
of the less important links have faded altogether from history3
(Fig. 10).
The Tyrians were well inspired to seek these new outlets for
their energies in the west of Europe, for in the other direction
they saw markets closed to them in which they had once had a
monopoly. Greece was developing fast ; her population was
growing and beginning to give evidence of a love for maritime
commerce. In the two or three centuries which followed the
supercession of Sidon by Tyre the Phoenician merchants had
every day to struggle harder to maintain their position in the
1 EZEKIEL xxvii. 12.
2 As to the profits accruing to the Phoenicians from their control of the mines in
the Iberian peninsula, see DIODORUS, v., xxxv. 3-6 ; xxxviii. 2-4. He is speaking
chiefly of silver, but he adds that " tin was found in many parts of the peninsula."
In these days the chief metallic products of Spain and Portugal are iron, copper,
and especially argentiferous lead. Veins of tin are known, but they are not rich
enough to pay for the working.
3 We borrow this map from M. Maspero. The letter G at the end of a name
indicates a colony from Gebal, S one from Sidon, and T one from Tyre. But some
of these attributions are by no means certain.
3«S HISTORY OF ART IN PIM.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
/Egruan. Their goods were still bought, but they were no longer
the sole purveyors of all those things by which life is made
comfortable and luxurious ; they could no longer add the profits
of piracy to those of trade ; the practice of kidnapping girls and
boys and selling them into slavery l had to be given up as soon
as the people of the islands learnt to build ships for themselves,
and to retain the mastery of their own ports. The rich silver
mines of Siphnos and Cimolos were no longer worked for
the benefit of strangers to the soil. The isolated situation of
o
Thasos enabled the Phoenicians to maintain themselves there
to a later period, but at the beginning of the eighth century
they were chased even thence by a colony of Parians.- Long
before this Miletus and her colonies had closed the straits to
them, and under the Saite princes the lonians began to compete
with them for the trade of Egypt. About the same period the
Greeks established themselves first in Italy and soon afterwards in
Sicily. Archias, at the head of a numerous band of Corinthians
and Corcyrans, founded Syracuse in 733 ; the rest of the same
coast was almost monopolized by other Greek settlements. All
the Phoenicians had left to them was the western extremity of the
island, with the three towns known to the Greeks as Motya,
Kepher, afterwards called Solunte, and Machanath, or Panormus.
And, as if all the world were banded against Phoenicia, life
became at the same time more precarious on the Syrian coast.
After the disappearance of the Ramessids, Egypt, enfeebled and
divided, retreated within herself, and her armies no longer
appeared in Syria. Phoenicia lost much by the removal of
that Egyptian suzerainty which had been a protection to her
rather than a hindrance ; its disappearance left her without
defence against the daily increasing ascendency of Assyria.
From the ninth century onwards she paid annual tribute to
the kings of Nineveh.
Why did she fail to accommodate herself to the domination of
Assyria as she did to that of Egypt, and afterwards to that of the
1 HERODOTUS, i. i ; HOMER, Odyssey, xv. 415-484.
2 We have no good reason for doubting the date given by DIONYSIUS OF
HALICARN. -\ssus as that of the establishment of the Parian colony, vi/., the Fifteenth
Olympiad, 720-717 (Conf. CLEM. ALEXAND. Stromata* i. 21, p. 398). See G.
PERROT, Mhnoire sur /'//e de Thasos, in the Archives t/es Missions, vol. i., 2nd
series, 1864.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 39
Achcemenids ? The reason is to be sought no doubt in the fact
that the Assyrian conquerors were imbued with a religious
fanaticism, a sternness of tyranny and a greediness, which hurt
both the interests and the pride of the Tyrians ; the tribute
claimed was too heavy, and the gods who had guarded the
Phoenician mariners for so many centuries saw their temples
dishonoured by the truculent votaries of Assur. But however
this may be the fact remains that, although the other Phoenician
cities submitted as a rule to the Assyrian generals as soon as they
appeared in the country, Tyre held out against them again and
again. More than once, and for years at a time, she defied the
whole power of Sargon and Shalmanezer V. Sennacherib, indeed,
succeeded in forcing a king of his own choice upon her, and,
under the last princes of his dynasty, she seems to have accepted
her lot as a vassal. After the fall of Nineveh, when a Babylonian
empire succeeded to that of Assyria, Phoenicia made haste to
secure the alliance of Judsea, and still more of Egypt, against the
new masters of the east. At this moment a new life was breathed
into the Nile kingdom by the princes of the Saite dynasty, and
the desire to reconquer her ancient ascendency in Syria took hold
upon her. But unhappily her Pharaoh, Apries, was defeated and
Jerusalem taken, while Tyre was blockaded for thirteen long years
by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.' But as the island city still
retained command of the sea, she in the end compelled the
Chaldseans to treat with her and raise the siege1 (574 B.C.). A
blockade so prolonged must have had a destructive effect upon
Tyrian commerce. No merchandize could reach the city over land,
her factories must have stood idle, her sailors must have been
drawn from their proper trade to the work of war. The less
stubborn Sidon must have profited by the enforced idleness of
her rival to resume her ancient supremacy. But it was, indeed,
a critical period for the whole of Phoenicia. While she was
engaged in military and political resistance to the Ninevites and
1 Governed by the wish to show that prophecy was fulfilled, most ecclesiastical
authors have tried to make out that Nebuchadnezzar took and sacked Tyre ; but
Phoenician annals deny in the most formal manner that Tyre was ever taken by the
Chaldaeans (MASPERO, Histoire ancienne, p. 503, No. 2). M. BERGER inclines to the
same opinion. " The issue of the siege seems doubtful. The allusions to it in the
sacred writings are ambiguous. But from certain other evidence it would seem that
on this occasion also Tyre foiled her enemies, and that Nebuchadnezzar was obliged
to come to terms " (La Phenicie, p. 10).
40 HISTORY 01 ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Babylonians, her merchants were supplanted in many markets by
those of Greece and Etruria.
After the fall of Babylon Cyrus became sole master of western
Asia, and the Phcunicians, like the Jews, made haste to accept the
Persian rule. The Achsemenids had no religious fanaticism ; they
left a large measure of liberty to the subject peoples of their
empire, and their monetary exactions were moderate.1 They
were especially tender with the Pruunicians. The Persians had
no navy, and they required one for their contest with Greece ;
they could not reckon on any cordial co-operation from the cities of
Ionia, but two strong inducements led the Phoenicians to give
the help required. In the first place the direct profit was great ;
a never-ceasing stream of darics poured into their ports to pay for
their ships of war and their hardy crews. Secondly, they had an
opportunity for taking some kind of revenge on those enterprising
rivals who had for centuries past been narrowing the field of their
commerce. Down to the time of the Macedonian conquest the
kings of Persia had no subjects more faithful than the Phoenicians.
History mentions but one case of refusal to co-operate with the
Persians on the part of the Syrian coast towns ; and that was
when Cambyses, fresh from the conquest of Egypt, wished to
undertake an expedition against Carthage. The Phoenicians, says
Herodotus, declared that it was quite impossible that they should
take part in any such campaign, " because the most sacred oaths
bound them to the Carthaginians, and in fighting against their own
children they would be violating both ties of blood and scruples of
religion." Such a scruple did honour both to their heads and
hearts. At the end of the sixth century Carthage was on the
high road to the foundation of a colonial power in the Mediter-
ranean of which the mother city might well be proud, and it was
impossible that the latter should help to nip it in the bud or to
hinder the development of a commercial prosperity in which,
thanks to the intimate relations that subsisted between the ports
of Africa and those of Syria, Tyre and Sidon would be certain to
share.
The fortune of Carthage was made by her distance from the
1 HERODOTUS (iii. 91) does not tell how much of the tribute of 350 talents which the
fifth satrapy (Syria and the island of Cyprus) had to pay, fell to the share of
Phoenicia.
2 HERODOTUS, iii. 19.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 41
principal centres of Greek civilization. While the t\vo eastern
basins of the Mediterranean became Greek seas, at least in their
northern portion, as early as the end of the eighth century,
Carthage had the western basin pretty well to herself; in it the
Greek colonies were at no time either very numerous or very
powerful ; they were too far from their base.
The supremacy Carthage then acquired she was not to lose
until, in the third century before our era, the Roman people
entered upon the full political inheritance of Greece ; and before
the hour of her fall arrived she had time to play a part in the
world whose importance and originality deserve to be brought
into strong relief. " By its geographical situation the city of Dido
belonged to Africa and the west ; by its manners, by its language,
by its civilization and the descent of its inhabitants, it belonged to
Asia and the east. It was an outpost of Asiatic civilization
pushed forward into the western Mediterranean ; it was through
Carthage that, in Africa, in Gaul, in Spain, even in the British
Islands, oriental modes of life and thought preceded those of
Greece and Rome." }
The country in which Carthage and those other Syrian colonies
whose names we have mentioned were established, was after-
wards the African province of the Romans, and is now Tunis, a
province de facto of France. Its fertility is well known. The
Phoenicians found it inhabited by a mixed population in which a
race of Egyptian blood, the ancestors of the modern Berbers, are
supposed to have predominated. The superior intelligence and
higher skill of the Syrians soon gave them an influence over the
native tribes — an influence which came all the easier, perhaps, by
reason of some distant affinity of blood. They introduced better
methods of agriculture, an industry which, like all others, had been
carried very far on the Syrian coast. In the neighbourhood of
Tyre and Sidon M. Renan found abundant evidence that the
Phoenicians carried on their tillage with far better tools than those
now in use in the country.2 In Africa the plains were very
different both in size and in quality of soil from those on the
narrow shores of Palestine. Wheat soon became an important
article of export ; and the peasants of the interior rapidly learnt
the language spoken by the merchants to whom they carried their
1 FR. LENORMANT, Manuel de fHistoire ancienne, vol. iii. p. 153.
2 E. RENAN, Mission de Ph'enicie, pp. 633, 634 and 639 ; plate xxxvi.
VOL. I. <*
42 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
grains and fruits in exchange for the stuffs, tools and jewellery
sold in the city bazaars. These relations continued for centuries
without interruption, and in time produced the mixed but strongly
Semitic race of men whom the Greeks called Liby-Phomicians.
It was by the help of these half breeds that Carthage succeeded
in an enterprise which Tyre had not even attempted. In two
hundred years, from the end of the ninth to the end of the seventh
centuries, she conquered, foot by foot, the whole of the region
stretching from the Lesser Syrtes to the frontier of Numidia ; and
her occupation was not confined to the littoral ; she founded, in
the interior, a number of towns and fortified villages whose fidelity
to the metropolis, like that of the Roman colonies in Italy, was
secured by the enjoyment of important privileges.1 The earlier
Tyrian colonies had been nothing more than factories with supre-
macy over the land in their immediate neighbourhood, while the
skilful policies of Carthage soon made her the mistress of a wide
and fruitful territory supporting several millions of inhabitants.
As for the other Tyrian and Sidonian cities on the same coast, they
preserved for the most part the dignity implied by the name of
allies, but Carthage was the permanent mistress of the confederacy
and the disposer of its forces.
Neither Tyre nor Sidon ever had an army. In most cases they
founded their settlements in islands to which the sea was a
sufficient protection, and nothing more than a few ships to guard
the straits was required. When they were compelled to raise
factories on the main land, they surrounded them with a wall
strong enough and high enough to defeat a coup-de-main, while
they paid an annual subsidy to the chiefs of the nearest tribes,2
just as our modern merchants did on the coast of Guinea when-
ever they wished to set up their establishments on the lands of
some negro king. In these days the subsidies take the form of
beads, barrels of rum or gunpowder and old muskets. The
Phoenicians can have had no difficulty in supplying the natives
1 " It is thus," says ARISTOTLE, " that Carthage guards against the dangers of an
oligarchy — she sends periodically colonies made up from among her own citizens
into the countries round about, and insures them an easy existence." — Politics, ii.
viii. 9.
2 "Statute annuo vectigali pro solo urbis" says JUSTIN (xviii. 5). He even says that
Carthage herself paid such a subsidy for more than three centuries, which hardly
seems likely (xix. i and 2).
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 43
with such things as they prized. Wine, for instance, must have
been as greatly sought for as spirits are now. True to their
national habits, the Tyrians preferred to buy a few acres of
land in this fashion, than to take them by force and defend them
with the sword.
Carthage found herself compelled by events to take another
line ; as soon as she had conceived the desire to possess the sur-
rounding country an army became necessary, and she found the
first elements of it in the very native tribes for whose subjection
it was intended. The liberal pay which she could so easily offer
attracted recruits from all the races by which her own territories
and those of her neighbours were peopled. She enrolled Liby-
Phcenicians, Numidians and Moors, while her own citizens
fashioned the rough material thus provided into efficient fighting
units. Her army was at first purely African, but in later years,
when she embarked on her great conflicts with the Sicilian Greeks
and the Romans, she had to turn for help to all who chose to live
by the profession of arms, and of all the people who dwelt on the
Mediterranean coast, there was not one, speaking broadly, that
was unrepresented in the great regiments of mercenaries with
which Hamilcar, Hasdrubal and Hannibal disputed the empire of
the world with Rome.
But long before she could put these great hosts into the field,
that is, at the beginning of the sixth century, Carthage had what
no Phoenician city had possessed before her, namely, a wide
territory and a standing army. She was, therefore, in a condition
to make the best of her opportunities when the long duel between
Tyre and Babylon prevented the former city, for ten years and
more, from supporting her stations beyond the sea. Disquieting
events were taking place in every direction. In Betica the
Turdetani had risen, had attacked the Phoenician settlements, and had
massacred the African colonists whom Tyre had established in the
valley of the Betis. And the gravity of the crisis was increased
by the fact that the hand of Greece was felt behind it. As early
as 640 Coleos of Samos had pushed a hardy prow as far as these
distant coasts, and, favoured by fortune, had returned to vaunt the
wonders of Betica and the treasures of Gades in his native island.
From that day every Ionian captain had burned to reach Tartessos,
as the Greeks called Tarshish. In making for Spain, a Greek of
Phocsea, Euxenes by name, had landed in southern Gaul, not far
44 HISTOKV OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
from the mouth of the Rhone, and founded Massilia. In 548 the
Khodians and Cnidians made the same attempt, and, landing on
the north-east of the peninsula, founded Rhoda, now Rosas. But
it was by the Phocxans that these explorations were most
energetically carried out. It seems probable that the story told by
Herodotus of the sudden affection for his foreign visitors that
seized the king of Tartessos,1 whom he calls Arganthonios, must
date from the period of inaction forced upon Tyre by the blockades
of Nebuchadnezzar. The Greeks perhaps were less greedy and
more easy to get on with than their Syrian rivals, while fortune
smiled here on their rising ambition as she did everywhere else.
In Sicily the three cities still left to the Pruenicians were already
threatened.
From one end of the Mediterranean to the other every
Phoenician colony and every Phoenician merchant began to turn
beseeching glances towards Carthage ; if Carthage refused to take
up the broken policy of Tyre the whole fabric of Phoenician
commerce was threatened with rapid extinction. Carthage re-
sponded to the appeal and proved herself equal to the work that
had to be done. She understood that the times had changed. As
long as the Tyrians and Sidonians were confronted on every coast
by nothing but savage and scanty populations, it was easy enough
to insure the safety of their settlements. But the world had be-
come peopled ; the indigenous tribes had learnt the use of bronze
and iron ; finally a civilization, that of the Greeks, was to be
encountered on every shore, was developing rapidly, and had
already surpassed that of the Phoenicians in all matters of art and
thought. A new situation called for new modes of action. Carthage
did not hesitate a moment. She was not content with a defensive
programme, by which she would have lost ground from year to
year ; she chose the aggressive. The time of monopolies was
past, but by her energetic action she secured for three centuries
more a privileged situation over the whole western basin of the
Mediterranean.
" A great expedition was sent to Spain which relieved the coast
cities, reconquered the valley of the Betis, and resumed those
mineral districts whose possession was of such capital importance.
A large number of Liby-Phcenicians were transported into the
country and there established as colonists, to keep the native
1 HKRODOTUS, i. 163.
ORIGIN OF THE PIKKNICIANS. 45
tribes in check. The system of government and colonisation
which had been put in action in Zeugitania and Byzacenia was
applied to Betica. In order to keep open their strategic and
commercial communications with Spain by land as well as by sea,
the Carthaginians occupied and fortified the towns, called Meta-
gonites by the Greeks, which formed an unbroken chain along
the whole coast of Mauretania as far as the pillars of Hercules.
They had been founded by Tyre in the first instance as harbours of
refuge and victualling stations for ships on their way to Gades and
back. An intimate alliance was entered into with the Numidians,
who were engaged to respect the ports established on their coasts
—ports which served as recruiting stations for the Carthaginian
armies among the warlike tribes in their neighbourhood."
Encouraged by these first successes, the Carthaginians deter-
mined to cast an army into Sicily which might win the co-opera-
tion of the tribes in the interior, the Siculi and Sicani. These
tribes were beginning to feel some apprehension at the rapid
growth of the Greek colonies, which encroached yearly upon their
narrow territory. The Carthaginians soon succeeded in making
themselves masters of the western part of the island and of the
interior, throwing the Greek colonists back on the northern and
eastern coasts.2 The towns which still belonged to the Syrian
stock were relieved by the success of this bold policy ; garrisons
were thrown into them and they were put in an efficient state of
defence. Where the Tyrians had left only watchers and ware-
house-keepers, there the Carthaginians put soldiers.
A no less successful effort was made to reconquer the
Phoenician supremacy in the waters that lie between Sardinia
and the north-eastern coasts of Spain. In 556 the Phocaeans
founded the town of Alalia, or Aleria, on the eastern coast of
Corsica, in a situation well chosen for the desired purpose of counter-
acting the advantages given to the Phoenicians by their possession
of a part of Sardinia ; it enabled its founders to command the
whole of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Ligurian Gulf. The capture
and destruction of Phocsea by Harpagus in 547, at the time of the
conquest of Ionia by the Persians, instead of ruining the Ionian
possessions in the west, really added greatly to their importance.
1 FR. LENORMANT, Manuel cTHistoire antienne, vol. iii. p. 187.
2 This we learn from a few short and rather vague sentences of JUSTIN (xviii. 7).
46 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
From a colony Massilia rose to be a metropolis j1 fugitives from
Phoauu, energetic men and skilful sailors, took refuge with the
wealth they had saved, some in Massilia, others at Aleria. The
effect of this reinforcement was soon felt. The Ionian colonists
captured and destroyed the stations established by the Phoenicians
on the coasts of Liguria and north-eastern Spain, while in more
than one encounter their squadrons defeated those of Carthage.
The superiority thus won they enjoyed for some time.2
The Greeks were, then, in a fair way to gather the trade with
Spain into their own hands, and, tempted by the mines of
Sardinia, they would be likely in time to wish to add that island
to the colony they had begun to form in Corsica. Carthage could
not be indifferent to such ambitions as these, and she determined
to resume, if possible, her ascendency in the north, as she had
resumed it in Betica and Sicily ; and in the new enterprise she
had the good fortune to rind allies.
At this moment the Etruscans, that strange people whose origin
and language are still a mystery, were at the height of their
prosperity. Their nation as a whole had its seat in Tuscany, but
Campania also had a few Etruscan cities, and as these two groups
of a single people were separated by Latium, where the power
of Rome was gradually extending itself, they required the com-
mand of the sea to enable them to communicate freely with one
another. This freedom was compromised by the existence of the
Ionian colony on the opposite coast of Corsica. It was natural
then that Carthaginians and Etruscans, in both of whom similar
apprehensions had been awakened by a single foe, should unite
their forces against him. In 536 an Etruscan fleet sailed from
Populonia, the chief port of Etruria, and, being joined by a fleet
from Carthage, the combined squadrons turned their heads to-
wards Aleria. The ensuing battle was won by the lonians, but
their numbers were so scanty that even victory was fatal. They
abandoned Aleria and fled, some to Massilia, others to southern
Italy, where they founded the colony of Velia.3
Corsica had neither the fertile plains nor the mineral wealth of
Sardinia. The Carthaginians, after establishing a few naval
1 LENORMANT, Histoire ancienne, vol. iii. p. 191.
• THUCYDIDES, i. 13; PAUSANIAS, x. viii. 4.
3 HERODOTUS, i. 165-7 ; DIODORUS, v. xiii. 4.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 47
stations, abandoned the rest of the island to the Etruscans.1 But
on the other hand they razed to the ground most of the towns
built by the lonians on the coast of Spain ; they re-established
themselves in Liguria, where the rock of Monaco was one of their
fortresses. Massilia lived a precarious life until the great victory,
won by Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, over the Etruscans in 474, re-
stored freedom of movement to the Greek colonists in the Gulfs
of Lyons and Genoa. The Massilians seem never to have
resumed the great enterprises of a century before ; they were
content to make the most of southern Gaul, and to leave Spain
and the islands to the Phoenicians of Africa. By the force of
events a tacit convention or formal agreement was entered into
between these various commercial races ; in the rapid multiplica-
tion of transactions there was profit for them all. The discovery
at Marseilles of a table of charges, in the Punic language, for
sacrifices in the temple of Baal, seems to prove that Carthage
had a factory at Massilia. The tablet must have been engraved
at Massilia, for the stone of which it consists has been recognized
as that of a neighbouring quarry.2
Freed from the uneasiness inspired by the enterprise and armed
competition of the lonians, the Carthaginians set to work to
complete their network of strategic positions in the western
Mediterranean. After a check or two they finished the conquest
of Sardinia, and, as in Africa, they favoured its agricultural
development. " Under their rule the island reached a prosperity
it has never seen since. Sardinia, which is now so thinly peopled,
so wild, so unhealthy, was, when the Romans took possession of
it after three centuries of Carthaginian domination, a rich and
flourishing garden, with a large rural and urban population."
Mago, the general who had brought the conquest of Sardinia
to a happy conclusion, also succeeded in taking full possession of
the Balearic group. In Minorca he founded a city which after-
wards became one of the chief naval stations of the republic — a
city which has preserved the name of its founder with but little
1 DIODORUS, v. xii. 3, 4.
2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, part i. No. 164.
3 FR. LENORMANT, Manuel cFHistoire ancienne, vol. iii. p. 197. According to
DIODORUS (x. xv. 4) a few savage tribes continued to maintain their independence
in the mountains, but the whole of the plains were occupied by the Carthaginian
colonists.
4^ HisTuKY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
alteration down to our own day, for Port Ala/ton is but a form of
Port Jlfa?t>*
Towards the end of the sixth century, Carthage had established
her supremacy over at least half the Mediterranean, but already
her merchants and captains were beginning to find the boundaries
of that land-locked sea too narrow for their energies. Her ships
were every year becoming more ready to pass the Pillars of
Hercules and to navigate the Atlantic. There the Tyrians had
preceded them, but with less boldness. With a commission from
the Carthaginian senate, a certain Hanno explored the coast of
Africa as far as the eighth degree of south latitude.'2 As a result
of that expedition the whole African coast from the straits to
Cape Nun was colonized, more than three hundred settlements
being established there, of which a few, such as Tingis (Tangier]
and Sala (Rabat) are now represented by Moorish towns.
Although most of these were abandoned, some retained a con-
siderable commerce, such as Cerne (the island of Arguin), where
great annual fairs used to be held.:!
In the course of these explorations the Carthaginians discovered
the Canaries and touched at Madeira.1 " From a passage in
Scylax, it would even appear that they attempted to push still
farther west, and got as far as the Mcr dcs Sargasscs (?), but the
quantity of weeds with which the surface of the waves was
covered made them think it would be dangerous to venture
farther, and they retraced their steps. 5 If the wars against the
Sicilian Greeks and the Romans had not come to distract the
1 According to DIODORUS the Balearic Islands supported a large Phoenician
population by the side of their indigenous tribes.
J The official report of Hanno's voyage, which was deposited in the temple of
Baal-Ammon at Carthage, has been preserved to us in its entirety by a Greek
translation. See the Geographi Grcvci Minores, Muller's edition (I)idot, vol. i.
part i.), and the two maps prepared by that learned editor for the illustration of
the text.
3 SCYLAX, Periple (?), 112.
4 This we may infer from many texts which it would take too long to discuss.
Among them is a passage in DIODORUS, in which he gives a brilliant description of
a fertile and well-watered island, with a delicious climate, which was situated
" opposite Africa, in the ocean to the west, and separated from the main land by
several days' sail" (v. xix.). After its discovery by the Phoenicians they paid
periodical visits to it, he tells us, down to a very late period (v. xx.).
5 FR. LENORMANT, Manuel (THistoirc ancienne, vol. iii., p. 200 ; SCYLAX,
112.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 49
attention of Carthage, a Phoenician Columbus might have dis-
covered America twenty centuries before that event actually took
place. We know that a Tyrian captain, subsidized by Nechao,
king of Egypt, anticipated Vasco de Gama and circumnavigated
Africa about the year 600 B.C.1
While Hanno steered towards the South Atlantic, another
commander, Himilco, made his way north, reconnoitring the
western coasts of Spain and Gaul and touching the British Isles.2
It has been said that the Tyrians also reached those coasts, but no
evidence that they did so has been adduced. On the other hand
we know that, during the Carthaginian period, ships of Gades
went to an archipelago which they named the Cassiteridcs, or " tin
islands." These were the Scilly Islands, to whose inhabitants
they gave salt, bronze vases, arms and pottery in exchange for
hides and metal.3 No doubt they landed at several points on the
coast of Cornwall and Ireland, but according to their usual habits,
they preferred to establish themselves on small islands, where
their safety was more assured. There they would set up markets
to which the tribes on the main-land could bring any merchandize
they had to dispose of.4
This Atlantic trade was a monopoly. The Carthaginians
spared no pains to keep away competitors. Their pilots jealously
guarded their knowledge of the prevailing winds, of the currents
and anchorages, while they spread such reports as to the difficulties
and dangers of the navigation as would discourage any but the
most dauntless souls. When a foreign captain refused to be
frightened and attempted to follow the track of a Carthaginian
ship, the crew of the latter were ready for any extreme, either of
cruelty or enterprise, to choke him off and preserve the national
secrets. If they felt themselves to be the stronger party, they
would turn upon their pursuer and put him and his crew to
death ; 5 if inferior strength made this impossible they would risk
1 HERODOTUS, ii. 42.
2 The report of Himilco has not been preserved, but some of its facts appear to
have been utilized in the Latin poem of Festus Arienus.
3 STRABO, iii. v. n.
4 Without naming the Carthaginians, DIODORUS tells us that the inhabitants of
the south-western extremity of Great Britain had their habits and manners much
softened by their intercourse with the strangers who came to their shores for tin.
5 APPIAN, Punica, 5 ; STRABO, xvii. i. 19.
VOL. I. ir
5O HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIKS.
tlieir own existence to mislead their rival. Strabo tells us of the
Phoenician captain who, seeing himself followed by a Roman
ship along the western coast of Spain, deliberately steered upon
a shoal, where his ship perished and with it the Roman galley.
The Phoenician captain managed to swim ashore, and on his
return to his own country he was rewarded for his heroism and
ready resource with the full value of his lost ship and cargo.1
Such proceedings would not do in Italian waters. There the
Carthaginians had to be content with admission to the ports on
equal terms with Greeks and Etruscans. At a very early hour
they had been compelled to renounce all idea of retaining a footing
on the soil of the peninsula, and to content themselves with taking
up positions which gave them ready access to it, as, for instance,
on the island of Lipari, whence they could keep a watch upon the
Straits of Messina and the whole coast of Southern Italy. These
advanced posts they could make the bases both of trade and
piracy. From the former very large profits were still to be
won, as Carthage had a practical monopoly in the supply of
African and oriental objects to European markets. They
entered into commercial treaties. Aristotle had heard of treaties
concluded between the Etruscans and the Carthaginians,2 and
Polybius has preserved for us the text of the first convention
signed between Carthage and Rome, the latter signing for her
Latin allies, and the former for her own metropolis ; this was in
509, the year of the expulsion of the Tarquins.3 The excavations
made in Etruria and Latium are continually affording evidence in
support of these historical statements. In the cemeteries of both
countries a large number of objects have been found which,
speaking figuratively, bear the stamp of Carthage.
It was at about this period that the wealth and greatness of
Carthage were at their zenith, and that her affairs were most
skilfully managed. We shall not follow her into her wars
against the Greeks of Sicily, which went on at the same time
as the Medic wars in the East ; still less shall we dwell upon
that long duel with Rome in which she at last succumbed. Long
before the day of her fall, long before the day of that great
1 STRABO, iii. v. n. 2 ARISTOTLE, Politics, iii. v. 10.
3 POLYBIUS, iii. 22.
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 5 1
disaster which recalled to Scipio and Polybius the melancholy
lines of Homer, the supremacy of the Greek civilization was
assured. The art of Greece had arrived at perfection by the
middle of the fifth century. From that date onwards the
Hellenic world drew from the East nothing but raw material,
to which it gave forms so superior to those hitherto known that
they soon imposed themselves on every neighbouring people.
Carthage no more escaped the action of this powerful rivalry
than the Phcenician towns of Syria. In the middle of the
fourth century the throne of Tyre was occupied by that Strato
whose passion for all that was Greek gave him the name of the
Phil-Hellene. Something of the same kind went on at Carthage.
The Carthaginians waged a murderous war against the Greeks of
Sicily, but in the sequel they carried off the statues from their
enemy's shrines, and set them up in the temples and public places
of their own city.1 They even copied the money of Greece, or
rather they caused coins to be struck by Greek artists for their use
(Figs, ii and i2).2 Finally, Greek architects found their way to
Carthage long before Scipio and his legions. The temples which
disappeared in the great conflagration, the shrines of Baal-Hammon
and Tanit, cannot have preserved the look of Phcenician sanc-
tuaries, they must have been reconstructed in the style made
fashionable by the Greek artists of the time of Alexander and
his successors ; at least we may fairly conclude that it was so
from the fact that the military harbour was decorated with
columns of the Ionic order.3 Not the slightest fragment of these
structures has come down to our time ; but we find a trace of
Greek influence even in the ornaments with which those steles
1 APPIAN, Punica, 133 ; CICERO, In Verrem, De Signis, xxxv.
2 For the chronology of the Carthaginian coinage see FR. LENORMANT, Essai
sur la Propagation de V Alphabet phenicien dans F ancien Monde, vol. i. p. 156-161.
The two specimens which we reproduce are thus described by DE SAULCY (in the
notes to M. Duruy's Histoire romaine, vol. i- p. 419 and 420, and from which we
borrow these two figures) : n. Obv. Head of the nymph Arethusa ; Rev. Pegasus.
The legend BARAT signifies the wells, or perhaps more accurately Bi ARAT, at
the wells, the Punic name for Syracuse, which possessed the famous well of Arethusa.
Large silver piece, certainly struck in Sicily, and probably at Syracuse. — 12. Obv.
Head of Arethusa. Rev. A horse supported by a palm-tree ; an especially Cartha-
ginian type. Sub-division of No. n. The inscription on both has the same
signification, so that the two coins must have originated in Sicily. Electrum.
3 Kioves 8' cKacrrou vewo-otKou Trpov^ov 'law/cot St'o. . . APPIAN, Punica, 96.
HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
consecrated to Tanit, of which such vast numbers have been
discovered within the last few years, were decorated.1
In these curious monuments we find architectural motives
thoroughly Greek in character reproduced side by side with
forms and symbols that can only be explained by the Phoenician
religion. Pavilions in which the figure of a worshipper (Fig. 13)
I'"IG. ii. — Carthaginian coin. Silver.
or a collection of sacred emblems (Fig. 14) are inclosed have
triangular pediments supported by fluted pilasters, the latter
crowned with Ionic capitals. There are acroteria at the three
angles of the pediment. These acroteria appear again at the
angles of a pediment in which we find the tympanum occupied
by a mother-goddess (Fig. 15). Here the proportions of the
FIG 12. — Carthaginian coin. Liccirum.
pediment are not Greek, but, on the other hand, the cornice below
is decorated with a well marked egg-moulding. In one of the
most curious of these little monuments we encounter a clearly
defined Ionic capital surmounted by a crescent moon, which
supports in its turn a bust of Tanit. Above the face of the
1 PH. BERGER, Lettre a M. Fr. Lenormant stir ks Representations figurces des
Steles puniques de la Bibliothcque nationale (Gazette archcologique, 1876-7).
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS.
goddess a row of oves and arrow-heads may be distinguished
(Fig. 1 6). None of this is very pure either in form or proportion,
but except in such symbols as the crescent moon, it includes
nothing to remind us of Egypt or Assyria, nothing in fact that we
can call Phoenician.
In order to follow the history of Carthage in the west and to
trace her career down to the moment when her civilization
became blended in that of Greece and Rome, we have for the
FIG. 13. — Votive stele from Carthage. French National Library.
moment lost sight of Tyre and Sidon. We must now return to
them, for neither the Persian nor even the Macedonian conquest
crushed the genius and prosperity of the industrious race by which
they were inhabited. The Persian sovereignty had been accepted
as a deliverance, and to the Persian kings the Phoenicians had
given the assistance of their fleets in suppressing the revolts
which broke out, every now and again, in Ionia, Cyprus, and
Egypt. But their fidelity began to waver towards the middle
54 HISTORY OF ART IN PIICKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
of the fourth century, when the empire of the Achajmenids
seemed on the point of dissolution. In 316, under Ochus, Sidon
~
FIG. 14. — Votive stele from Carthage. French National Library.
rose and massacred its Persian garrison. Betrayed by her king
Tennes, she was retaken, reduced to ashes, and her inhabitants sold
for slaves.1
FIG. 15. — Votive stele from Carthage. French National Library.
Again, after the battle of Issus (B.C. 333), Byblos, Arvad, Sidon,
1 DIODORUS, xvi., 41-45. Diodorus places these events three or four years too
soon. According to him, the submission of Egypt and Phoenicia took place between
ORIGIN OF THE PHOENICIANS. 55
and the other cities of the coast hastened to submit to the con-
queror. Tyre alone listened to her pride rather than to her
interests. She was ready to acknowledge herself the vassal of
Macedonia on the same terms as those granted by Persia, but
she refused to allow Alexander to march at the head of his guard
through those gates which had never yet been passed by a
conqueror. She paid dearly for her resistance. After a siege of
FIG. 1 6. — Fragment of a, votive stele from Carthage. French National Library.
seven months she was taken and sacked. The mole by which the
besiegers joined her to the mainland changed her situation for
ever. She was no longer an island. To be mistress of the seas no
longer sufficed to make her impregnable,
351 and 348. But GROTE gives us very good reasons for believing that neither
Egypt nor Phoenicia can have been reduced before 346 and 345 (History of Greece.
vol. xi. p. 4-43, n. 3, and 441 n. 3).
56 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Thenceforward Tyre also had to abandon the great ambitions
renounced long before by the other cities of the coast, and the
Phoenicians, as a whole, had to be content with the status of
merchants ; merchants better informed, readier at a bargain, at
once more enterprising, more wary, more economical, and richer
than their rivals, but still only merchants ; subjects now of the
Ptolemies, now of the Seleucidae, and, finally, of the Roman
emperors, they had stations everywhere, at Alexandria and Athens,
at Corinth and Antioch, and later at Puteoli in Italy. In all these
towns they dwelt in their own quarter, they used among them-
selves their native Semitic language, they had their own temples
and forms of worship ; like the Jews and Armenians in modern
Turkey, they formed a nation apart, devoted to gain. From the
time that Greek art imposed itself upon all civilized nations they
ceased to play a useful part as the disseminators of plastic types
and industrial methods ; but in other respects their mission was not
yet fulfilled. During the two first centuries of our era their dis-
persed but strongly cohesive communities were among the most
active agents in the diffusion of Christianity.1
§ 3. — Religion.
Our knowledge of the Phoenician religion is still very imperfect.
The numerous inscriptions that have been found in recent years —
they are for the most part dedications and fragments of ritual
—have revealed the names of several deities previously unknown.
A certain amount of information has also been gleaned by the
study of onomatology, as nearly all the Phoenician proper names
are what is called theophori, that is to say, composite words in which
the name of a deity is included. Finally, we have a few fragments
of Phoenician writings, and a considerable mass of information
sprinkled over the works of Greek and Roman authors.2 But,
1 RENAN, Les Apotres, pp. 295-303.
2 MENANDER, who wrote a history of Phoenicia, was a native of Ephesus; but
according to Josephus, to whom we owe the few fragments of his work which
survive, he consulted Phoenician documents in the original (Fragmenta Historicum
Gracorum, C. Muller, vol. iv. pp. 445-448). The remains of Sanchoniathon are
to be found in the same collection, vol. iii. pp. 560-576. For the corrections that
require to be made in the Greek text of these fragments, see several ingenious
RELIGION.
in spite of the industry of modern criticism, many points are still
obscure. The epigraphic texts are dry and short ; they explain
nothing, and the analysis of proper names gives little after all but
the titles of gods ; the existing fragments of Sanchoniathon bear
traces of the syncretism of the decadence, and can only be utilized
with considerable caution ; and when we turn to the materials left
us by the classic authors we must do so with no less prudence and
reserve. The latter only knew Phoenicia in its decline, when it
was already more or less Hellenized. Moreover, they did not
always comprehend what they saw and heard. Finally, they
were content with comparisons which were often forced and
inaccurate.1
Traces of that bent of thought which we encounter in all pri-
mitive societies and call fetishism may be found in the Phoeni-
cian religion. The mountains had their gods, or, to speak more
exactly, they were worshipped as gods. Their imposing mass,
the majesty of the black forests with which they were clothed, the
voices of their torrents, their snowy summits and the depths of
their narrow gorges, gave them a mysterious power over the
imaginations of the people (Fig. 17). The worship of the
mountain gods dates certainly from the first days of the
Phoenician occupation ; its persistence is attested by the epithets
we meet with in the Semitic texts, such as Baal-Lebanon, Baal-
Hermon, and in Greek transcriptions like Zeus-Casios? In the
same spirit prayers and sacrifices were offered to rocks, to grottoes,
to springs and rivers. The cavern whence the stream of the Nahr
Ibrahim makes its " sudden sally " has been for thousands of years
one of the most sacred spots in Syria. The temple of Astarte,
developed into the Aphacan Aphrodite, was overthrown by
Constantine, but it was restored after his day was past. The rites
there performed doubtless dated back to the commencement of the
Phoenician occupation. We cannot wonder that a religious senti-
ment was excited by this scene, one of the loveliest in the world
conjectures by J. HALEVY, in his paper entitled : Les Principes pheniciens IIo(9os
et Mwr (in the Comptes Rendus de V Academic des Inscriptions, 1883, p. 36).
1 Upon the nature and the inadequacy of our materials for the study of the
Phoenician religion, see BERGER, La Phenicie, pp. 17-19.
2 The Baal-Lebanon is mentioned in the oldest Phoenician inscription we possess,
viz., the dedication engraved upon a bronze cup the fragments of which are now in
the French National Library {Corpus Inscriptionmn Semiticarum, part i., No. 5).
VOL. I. I
HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
(Fig. iS).1 Certain trees received homage of the same kind.
Under the Zeus-Demarous of Philo of Byblos we may recognize
the Phoenician form Baal-T/iamar, " the Lord of the Palm-tree."
The worship of betyta, which we encounter in every country
reached by Phoenician influence, may be traced to the same
FIG. 17. — Descent from the Pass of Lcgnia, in the Lebanon.
source. The word we have used above comes to us from the
Greeks, and they took it with some slight alteration from the
1 RENAN, Mission de Phcnicie, pp. 296-301. Fig. 18, like i and 17, is borrowed
from M. LORTET'S beautiful work, La Syrie d'Aujourdhui (Hachette, 1884).
2 BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 25. PHILO OF BYBLOS, Fragment i., 16-22. M.
Berger's explanation of the Zeus A^/zapou? of Philo is probable and ingenious,
but the group Baal-Thamar has never yet been found in a Phoenician text.
FIG. 18.— The sources of the River Adonis
RELIGION.
61
Semitic group Beth-el, which means, "the house of God." This
was a generic term used to denote all sacred stones, that is to say,
all stones credited with the possession of any special and peculiar
virtue. The form of these stones and the degree of respect in
which they were held varied greatly. As a rule they were either
conical or ovoid, but sometimes they were pyramidal, and, in a
few sanctuaries, they were squared shafts with smooth faces. We
are told that some were aerolites, a circumstance which greatly
enhanced their credit.
The diffusion of Greek arts and ideas did not cause the worship
of these stones to fall into disuse. Under the Roman emperors
FIG. 19. — Coin of Byblos ; enlarged. From Donaldson's Architectura Numismatica.
it was more popular than ever. In the time of Tacitus, Astarte,
then called Aphrodite, was figured on a cone in the chief temple
at Paphos,2 and so, at Byblos, was the great goddess of that place.
This we may see from the reverse of a coin of Byblos, struck
under Macrinus. The sacred stone rises in the middle of a
court surrounded by a portico (Fig. 19). Another instance was
1 This etymology has been contested by M. HALEVY (Revue de t Histoire des
Religions, vol. iv. pp. 392-3), but his alternative proposal has not met with general
acceptance. See also a dissertation by M. FR. LENORMANT, entitled, Les Betyles
{Revue de t Histoire des Religions, vol. iii. pp. 31-53), as well as M. HEUZEY'S paper:
La Pierre sacree d'Aniipolis (Me moires de la Soriete des Antiquaires de France,
1874). 2 TACITUS, History, ii. 3.
62 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKMCIA AND ITS L)KPKNI>ENCIKS.
the black stone of Emcsus, of which Heliogabalus was priest
before he was raised to the purple.1
It was, then, not only on the coast, it was over all Syria that
these stones were worshipped, and that down to the last hours of
paganism. It is a form of worship as old as the religious senti-
ment, and never, it would appear, has it flourished more than
during the decline of the antique civilization.
Societies, like individuals, have their periods of dotage, and this
was one. In the centuries to which we are transported by the
oldest known monuments of Phoenician art and fragments of
o
writing, the Phoenicians were no longer in the stage when the
sole divinities are rocks, trees, and stones. Towards the close
of the Sidonian period, when the ships of Tyre and Sidon were
ploughing the Mediterranean in every direction, the rites and
beliefs of Phoenicia, taking them as a whole, represented a con-
dition of religious thought in advance of that we have studied
in Egypt. There were no sacred animals ; men were less pre-
occupied with the worship of the dead. Their adoration was
chiefly addressed to the stars and to those great phenomena of
nature which seemed to them to be the results of deliberate action
on the part of some powerful and mysterious god. Their
polytheism was more abstract, more advanced, even than that
of Chaldaea ; it was farther removed from the phase to which
we give the name of polydemonism ; their pantheon was less
numerous, and its members were more concrete. Already,
perhaps, the idea of a single supreme being was beginning to
disengage itself from the conception of a crowd of distinct divini-
ties, and the latter to sink into the condition of mere embodiments
of the different moods and phases of a god in whom they were all
summed up.
It has been sometimes thought that this supreme god should be
recognized in the Baal-Samdim or " Baal of the skies," to whom
the great inscription of Oum-el-Awamid is dedicated ; - but when
we meet him elsewhere, in the island of Sardinia, for instance, it is
1 " In the temple there is a large stone, rounded at the base, pointed at the top.
conical in form, and black in colour; they say it fell from heaven." — HERODIAN,
v- 5-
2 MERGER, La I'hcniiie, p. 19; Corpus Inscriptwnum Scmiticarum, part i.
No." 7.
RELIGION. 63
with a geographical epithet that takes away much of his general
and superior character.1
In the immediate neighbourhood of Phoenicia, i.e. among the
Jews, monotheism had, by the time of the Assyrian triumphs,
reached its logical conclusion. The Phoenicians lived in intimate
relations with the Jews, especially with those belonging to the
kingdom of Israel ; they spoke almost the same language ; a
native of Gebal or Sidon would have no difficulty in understand-
ing the passionate invectives of an Elijah, an Elisha, or an
Isaiah ; and yet there is no evidence to prove that the words of
those orators and poets ever found an echo in the cities of the
Phoenician coast, or that the inhabitants of the latter associated
themselves, even for a moment, with the great religious movement
that was going on so near at hand. If certain expressions in the
Phoenician texts seem to hint that, at Tyre as at Thebes, men
sought now and then to raise themselves to the notion of a first
o
cause, it is none the less true that in the Phoenician spirit, which
did not take kindly to metaphysics, the notion in question was
never anything more than a vague and fleeting aspiration.
The example set by the Greeks must have counted for much in
this indifference. Certain gods and goddesses disembarked with
the Phoenicians on all the coasts of Europe ; it was to the
Phoenicians that the antique world owed many of the divine
types to which it was most attached. These types the Greek
imagination clothed in more definite shapes and imbued with a
warmer life than they had ever known before. As soon as the
plastic genius of the Greeks arrived at its full development, the
Phoenicians found themselves confronted, on every shore, by the
gods whom they worshipped and whom their fathers had wor-
shipped before them ; and they found them transfigured by an
incomparable art and lodged in temples which compelled admira-
tion by the unequalled grandeur of their lines. Merchants and
sailors, the greater part of their lives was passed away from their
native country, and wherever they went they were met by the
rites of a frankly polytheistic religion. In every foreign sanctuary
they saw presentments of the chief gods of their own pantheon,
but saw them beautified and enlarged. In every country at which
1 In the Sardinian inscription to which we here allude he is called " the
Baal-Samai'm of the isle of Hawks." Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticanun. par.t i..
No. 139.
64 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
they touched the same spectacle met their eyes, and the impres-
sions they received were not of a nature to divert their faith from
its ancient channels.
This is the true explanation of a phenomenon which at first
appears so surprising. The Phoenicians seem never to have
suspected that a great religious revolution was taking place in
that neighbouring country of Judaea from which they were
separated neither by any great social differences nor by any
natural barrier. Enterprising traders as they were, they kept
themselves au courant with the inventions and progress of the
world with which they traded. Nothing new could appear in any
market known to them without their at once taking measures to
supply it to all their clients, near or distant. But what profit
could they expect from spreading the worship of a God like the
God of Israel ; of a God who refused all association or rivalry ; of
a God who forbade sculpture to give Him a visible personality,
and in His hatred of idolatry even went so far as to proscribe the
representation of human or animal forms ? ]
Greece would never have obeyed such a command. Her love
of fine forms was too great. When Christian societies accepted a
religion that was the child of Judaism, they, too, were driven by
their natural preferences to find some means of eluding these
proscriptions. As for the Phoenicians, they were not like the
Greeks, they were not tormented by any inborn desire to repro-
duce the beautiful ; but regard for what seemed their own in-
terests was enough to make them turn their backs on a creed
to which such inconvenient conditions were attached. For
centuries images were among their principle articles of commerce.
Upon the objects of glass and ivory, of metal and terra-cotta,
which they sewed broadcast over the Mediterranean basin, the
figures of men and of real or fictitious animals abounded. They
manufactured gods for exportation upon every island of the
yEgxan, and upon all its coasts statues have been found of
.their great goddess Astarte (Fig. 20), of Bes,2 a god borrowed
perhaps from the Egyptians (Fig. 21), and of those dwarf gods
in whom we see the originals of the Greek pygmies (Fig. 22).
1 Exodus xv. 3-5.
2 HEUZEV, Sur quelques Representations du Dieu grotesque appele Bes par
les . Egyptians (in the Comptes Rendus de F Academic des Inscriptions, 1879,
pp. 140-147).
RELIGION. 65
The scattered mode of life in which the Phoenicians perse-
vered helped to make them indifferent to the higher faith of their
immediate neighbours. Cities in which the municipal life is
intense will not allow themselves to be absorbed in the unity of a
vast and powerful State ; they resist what to them seems a
degradation, and thus we often find that small countries, in which
the feeling of patriotism is strong, are a hindrance to the
formation of great States. The same remark applies to the
growth of religious conceptions. Among a people with whom
FIG. 20. — Astarte. From a Phoenician
terra-cotta in the Louvre.
P'IG 21. — Bes. From a Phoenician terra-
cotta in the Louvre. Height 8 inches.
these jealous political habits have prevailed, each city has its own
god or gods, and a combination of many exceptional circumstances
is required before they can break their narrow moulds and enter
upon a course of evolution by which they may, in time, become
fused into a national god, and finally into a god of humanity.
The Greeks, indeed, succeeded in rising to a spiritual unity
unknown to the Phoenicians. With them too the notion of a State
was confounded with that of a city, but the lofty intellectual gifts
of their race led them at a very early date to endow their gods
with powers far above those of mere protecting divinities of a
VOL. i. K
HlSToKN
ART IN I'll"] \iri\ .\M» ITS 1 >KI'I£N1)KNCIKS.
city or tribe. Greece had great poets, a llesiod, and above all a
Homer, whose words every Greek knew by heart; she had great
festivals, such as those of Delphi and Olympia, where all the
natives of Hellas could meet as brothers for at least a few days ;
she had an art which, in its desire tor a universal audience,
gave fixed types to each of the dwellers on Olympus. Phoenicia
was not so fortunate. The. efforts she made to counteract the
separating influence of her modes of life, and of the configuration
of her soil, were slight, and consequently we find the particular
municipal character much more strongly marked in her divinities
than in the gods of Greece. All this must have had a great effect
I'ygmy. l-'ruin a I'liu-nidan teira-cotta in the I.mivre. Height 9^ inches.
in retarding the development of the religious idea, and of the
plastic arts.
Among certain races, of which the Greeks were one, plurality
of gods has been a direct result of the infinite variety of divine
attributes imagined by the national intellect. The Hellenic
polytheism implies a profound analysis of the qualities of man
and of the laws of life ; it embodies the theology of a people
who were in later days to give birth to philosophy. The second-
ary deities of Phoenicia represent no such systematic effort of the
intellect ; they correspond mainly to geographical and political
divisions.
RELICIOX. 67
In the Phoenician texts, in Phoenician proper names, and in the
historical books of the Old Testament, the divine name which
crops up oftenest is that of Baal. Baal means tlic master ; a
title of honour which seems to have been applied to all divinities ;
hence the term in the Bible, Baalim, or Baals. There were as
many Baals, that is to say, masters, as cities or places devoted to
the rites of any particular worship. The Baal adored at Tyre, at
Sidon, on Lebanon, on Peor, became Baal-Tsoitr, Baal-Sidon,
Baal-Lebanon, Baal-Pcor. But even behind these local dis-
tinctions, a confused notion of primordial unity may be traced,
as in the terms Astoret-sem-Baal, or Astarte, name of Baal,
in Phoenicia, and Tanit-Pene-Baal, or Tanit, face of Baal, at
Carthage. In these formulae and a few others the term Baal -is
put, by a kind of abbreviation, as the proper name of the supreme
deity, but it never quite lost its wider and more general sense,
which was completed by the apposition of the name of a town
or mountain. Thus we find that Melkart, the great god of Tyre,
whose name and fame were carried so far by the Tyrian colonists,
was neither more nor less than the Baal of the Metropolis. " To
the Lord Melkart, Baal of Tyre",' runs a dedication found at
Malta.2
In this name Melkart, handed down to us by the Greeks, is
included another of those epithets with which the Phoenicians
loved to honour their gods, namely, the word Moloch, or Melek ,
"the king." 3 As an isolated divine title this word has never yet
been encountered, but it is often found in composition in proper
names of people, and its importance is proved by its use in the
title borne by the chief god of Tyre, that Melkart whom the
Greeks called " the sea-god Melikertes." Melkart is a contraction
of yJ/<?/£/£-kart, "the God of the City." His complete name was
Baal- Melkart) or Mclkart-Baal-Tsour, " Melkart, master of Tyre."
The word Adon, " the lord," was employed in the same fashion.
It was only at a comparatively recent date that it became the
1 PH. BERGER, La Ph'eiiide, p. 19; FR. LEXORMANT, M amid d' Histoire aiicienne >
vol. iii. p. 127; DE VOGUE, Mcmoires sur les Inscriptions phenidennes de /'/<•/<•
de Cypre, and part (Considerations mythologiques, in the Melanges c? Archeologi e
Orientale, 8vo. Paris, 1878).
2 Corpus Inscriptioniim Semiticarum, 122 and 122 (bis).
3 As only the consonants are noted in the Phoenician writing, we can only guess
at the pronunciation of the name.
68 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
proper name of a god, worshipped especially at Gebal, whose cult
was afterwards carried as far as Greece, and finally became one of
the most famous in the antique world.
From all this it follows that the titles given by the Phoenicians
to the more august of their gods were determined chiefly by
geographical limitations, and that they must have been far from
awaking such clearly defined ideas as those attached by the Greeks
to their Zeus, to their Poseidon or Hades, to their Hermes or
Apollo. For the same reason they lent themselves much less
kindly to plastic figuration, and the critic who attempts to define
in words the conceptions embodied in the terms Baal, Melek,
Adon, has no easy task.1 The examination of certain rites and
epithets allows us to catch a glimpse of a nature-god, worshipped
chiefly in the most striking of his manifestations, namely, as a
sun-god. All the Baalim seem to have had that character, but he
in whom it was most strongly marked was the Baal of Gebal, that
Tammouz who was invoked by cries of Adoni, Adorn, " My lord,
my lord." This famous being, who was afterwards to become
the simple Syrian hunter of the Greeks, was for the Phoenicians
the great sun-god himself, the star that appeared to languish every
year with the frosts of winter and to revive every spring ; and
those seasons of alternate joy and sorrow had their counterpart in
the rites with which Adon was worshipped.
As in Egypt and Chaldata, the spectacle of an organic world in
which all life sprang from the union of the sexes suggested the
application of the same condition to the divine world. Every god
had a goddess ; by the side of each Baal, or " master/' there was
a Baalat, or " mistress." At Gebal this mistress was adored
under the name of Baalat-Gcbal, or the " Mistress of Gebal."
She is represented on the upper part of the stele of Jehawmelek
(Fig. 23). Her reputation was great over the whole coast, and
has come down to us through the Greeks as that of Beltis. At
Carthage Tank shared the throne of Baal- Mammon ; at Tyre and
Sidon Astoret was the Baalat of Baal-Melkart and Baal-Sidon.
Astoret, or, to use a form to which we are better accustomed,
Astarte, seems to have had a more real personality than any other
Phoenician goddess. Her pre-eminence in that respect was due
1 M. BERGER mentions another title of the same kind, El^ which is found
associated with the names both of gods and goddesses.
- Hence, in all probability, the Greek form Adonis. BERGER, La Phenia'e, p. 20.
RELIGION.
69
to the fact that she had already a long life behind her when she
first came to establish herself on the Syrian coasts. She was the
Istar of Mesopotamia, with the same name, slightly modified, and
the same attributes. The double of a male god, Astarte was
identified with the moon, the pale reflection of the sun.1 She was
also the goddess of the planet Venus. The Jewish prophets must
have had her in their minds when they spoke of the " Queen of
Heaven"2 (Meleket-has-sama'im), who must have formed a pair
with (Baal-samdim), or " King of Heaven," and been worshipped
with him.
FIG. 23. — Upper part of the stele of Jehawmelek. In M. L. de Clercq's collection.
Astarte was, as it were, nature herself ; she was the true
sovereign of the world, presiding over a never-ending process of
creation and destruction, destruction and creation. By war, by
disease and plagues of every kind, she thinned out the useless and
aged ; she removed those who had played their parts and finished
1 " Astarte, in my belief, is the moon," says the intelligent and well instructed
author of the treatise Upon the Syrian Goddess, which has been handed down to us
among the works of Lucian (§ 4).
2 JEREMIAH vii. 18; xliv. 17, 18, 19, 25.
70 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DEI
their work, while in presiding over love and generation she in-
sured the perpetual renovation of life on earth.1 To take part
under her auspices in the work of nourishing that flame of sexual
desire upon which the duration of the species depended, was to
perform a meritorious act, and one of worship to the goddess ;
hence the sacred prostitutions and the habit of attaching to the
temples of Astarte those bands of hieroduli, who, under other
names, continued the traditions of the Phoenician sanctuaries in
Greece. Cyprus, Cythera, Kryx in Sicily, borrowed the worship
of the Syro- Phoenician nature-goddess from the Sidonians."
First Grcecicisecl under the name of Aphrodite, she also appears
in the classic writers as Cypris, Cytheraea, and Erycina, titles
which are so many certificates of origin;''
The dove, the most prolific of birds, was the favourite sacrifice
to Astarte, and afterwards to Aphrodite. In Phoenicia, in Cyprus,
in Sardinia, small tcrra-cotta figures have been found which
represent either the goddess herself, or one of her priestesses.
They are shown pressing a dove to their bosoms with one hand
(Fig. 20).
As a natural effect of a system that ordered the celestial on the
same lines as the terrestrial world, these divine couples were
1 This double character of the great Oriental goddess is well expressed by
Plautus, in a few lines put by him into the mouth of an Athenian :
" Diva Astarte, hominum deorumque vis, vita, salus : rursus eadem qune cst
Pernicies, mors, interitus. Mare, tellus ccelum, sidera
Jovis qurectmque templa colimus, ejus ducuntur nutu, illi obtemperant
Earn spectant " — Mtrcator, iv., sc. vi., v. 825.
The origin of the passage must be sought for in Philemon. Towards the end ot
the fourth century these Oriental religions were well understood in Athens; the
Phoenicians had temples of Melkart and Astarte at the Piraeus.
- In the first century B.C. the temple of Venus Erycina still possessed such tracts
of land and troops of slaves of both sexes who, after having served the goddess,
became her freedmen and freedwomen and lived under her protection. They formed a
class with special rights, which were respected by the Roman governors ; they were
called in Latin renerii (CicKRo, /;/ Q. Ccccilium dirinatio, § 55, 56 ; Pn> Clucntio
§ 43). A Phoenician inscription found at Eryx, related, in all probability, to an
offering or donation made to this goddess ; but the stone has been lost, and
it is impossible to re-establish the text from the bad copy by which alone it is now
represented (Corpus Inscriptionum Scmiticarum, part i. No. 135).
:i The ancients were fully alive to this identity of Astarte and Aphrodite ; it will
here suffice to quote the testimony of Pmr.o of Byblos : TT/I> An-rdprrjv SWvocc? rryv
.\(f>po?>i-rr)v eivat Ae'yowi (Fragm. Hist. Grcrc., ed. C. Mri.LKR, vol. iii. p. 569). See
also MOVERS, Die Phcenizicr, \. p. 606, where many analogous passages are cited.
RELIGION. 7 1
completed by the birth of a son, who is often made the lover of
his mother. Like Egypt and Chaldaea, Phoenicia had its triads,
but they appear to have been less clearly fixed and defined than
in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. It would seem that
at Sidon there was a bond of this nature between Baal-Sidon,
Astarte, and Esmoun,1 a god whom the Greeks in later days
assimilated to their own ^Esculapius. The female element in
these triads was nearly always embodied in Astarte, at least,
among the oriental Phoenicians. As a rule her name was preceded
by the honorific title Rabbat, " the Great Lady," which was,
moreover, applied sometimes to other goddesses.'2 Anat, or
Anahit, the Anaitis of the Greeks, was another name for the same
deity ; under this title also she was worshipped in Syria, whence
her cult passed into Egypt. We know from a Phoenician inscrip-
tion that she was domiciled in Cyprus.3 The name changed with
the place, but the conception remained.
Beside these great gods Phoenicia had several minor divinities,
with whom we are as yet very imperfectly acquainted. Reshep,
Resef, or Resef-Mikal, was the Phoenician Apollo. At least a
bi-lingual cypriot inscription identifies him, in its Greek part, with
the Amy clean Apollo.4 Resef penetrated into Egypt, and judging
from the way he was figured there we should be tempted to see in
him a god of war, an Ares or Mars (Fig. 24). Other deities,
Semes, or "the sun," Sakon, and Powiiai. the pygmy god of the
Greeks, have been revealed to us by the proper names of men.
It is among such gods as these and others of the same class that
we must, no doubt, look for the seven Cabeiri, or " powerful ones,"
whose worship was imported by the Sidonians into Thrace, there
to endure until the very last clays of paganism. The Cabciri
were planetary gods, as their number alone is enough to show.
Esmoun — •" the eighth," if we may accept the Semitic origin of
his name — was their chief. He was the third person of the triad
which we encounter, under different names, in every Phoenician
city. Esmoun was, in fact, the supreme manifestation of the divinity,
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, vol. i. part i. No. 3.
2 BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 22.
3 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, part i. No. 95. It is in speaking of this
inscription that M. DE VOGUE has presented us with those keen remarks on the
Phoenician religion that we quote so often in these chapters.
4 Corpus Inscriptionum Scwiticarum, part i. No. 89.
72 HISTORY <»K ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
summing up in his own person all other manifestations of the
creative force, just as the universe incloses the seven planetary
heavens. '
The whole of this group of gods is characterized by one
distinctive feature. They were all dwarf, or child, gods, two
things which both from the mythological and iconographical
points of view came to much the same thing. Herodotus remarks
upon their strange disproportions (Figs. 21 and 22); they
Fir.. 24. — Resef. From Wilkinson.
reminded him of one of the forms given by the Egyptians to
their Ptah, or, as he called him, to their Hephaestus.2
The Phoenicians passed so much of their time away from home
that they could not fail to adopt many notions from foreign
religions. We do not allude to their fundamental beliefs ; those
seem to have been brought with them from their original home
on the Persian Gulf; between Bel and Baal, between Istar and
1 BERGER, La Ph'enirie, p. 24.
2 HERODOTUS, iii. 37. Ptah has long been recognised as identical with the
'E<£ai'o-Tos of Herodotus.
RELIGION.
/ \J
Astarte, there are similarities upon which it is needless to
insist. As our knowledge of the Chaldsean religion increases, we
shall perhaps come upon still more striking evidence of the
parental relation in which it stood to that of Phoenicia ; we may,
perhaps, be enabled to trace a descent which is for the present
only a very great probability. Like the other tribes by whom the
Syrian coast has been peopled, the Phoenicians arrived there with
all the elements of a religion whose cradle must be sought about
the lower waters of the Euphrates, but in the course of the
cosmopolitan existence they led for so long they never ceased
to borrow deities and forms of worship from the nations with
whom they had dealings, and from those under whose sceptre
their country successively passed. The influence of the great
empires on the Tigris and Euphrates may be traced in many
things. In an inscription at Athens a Phoenician calls himself
" Priest of Nergal." A bi-lingual inscription found at Larnaca
of Lapethus, in the island of Cyprus, contains a dedication to the
goddess Anat, whose name is rendered in the Greek part by
Athene.2 But a far greater influence was exercised by Egypt,
with whom Phoenicia had such long and intimate relations.
Osiris, Horus, Bast, Harpocrates, all had their worshippers in the
coast cities. And their status was not that of foreign gods to
which a few individuals turned in temporary and dilettante
fashion. This is proved by the place their titles occupy in
Phoenician proper names, and by the parallelism established
between them and purely Phoenician gods. As the Phoenicians
said Melek-Baal, so they said Melek-Osir. Osiris certainly had
his place in the pantheon, although his admission must have
taken place at a comparatively late period, and as a consequence
of the confidential intercourse between the two countries, that
lasted from the days of the Theban Pharaohs to those of the
Ptolemies.
Carthage came so late upon the scene, and her relations with her
mother city were so intimate, that her religious beliefs cannot have
sensibly differed from those of her eastern cousins. Her chief
divine couple, the Baalim in whose protection the city mainly
trusted, were Baal-Hamnwn and Tanit ; Esnwun completed the
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, part i. No. 119.
2 Ibid. No. 95.
VOL. I. I.
74 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
triad. Jlaal-Ilatntnon means " the burning Baal" ; ' he was, as his
name suggests, a fire or sun god.1 Baal-Hammon was figured as
a man in the prime of life with rams' horns ; the arms of his throne
were also carved in the shape of rams (Fig. 25). As for Tanit
she was a Carthaginian Astarte ; she was the great Syrian nature
goddess, but with her siderial and lunar character rather more
strongly marked.3 The Greeks identified her with Artemis and
-'
•: ...Nv.V--i'
V^
Fir.. 25. — Baal-Hammon. Terra cotta. In the Barre collection.
the Romans with Juno; sometimes classic authors call her " the
1 This follows, at least, from the most probable etymology of the word. Others
have been proposed, but have failed to meet with general approval.
- Upon the type of Baal-Hammon, upon the rites with which he was worshipped
at Carthage, and upon his association with Tanit, see M. BERGER'S Memoire sur
un Bandeau troitrc dans les Environs de Batna et conserve au Afus'ee de Constantine
(Gazette ari/ieofogiqite, 1879, p. 133).
3 A connection between the names Anat and Tanit may be devined rather than
proved ; the intervening links are missing. But the conception is the same, and
the two words are so much alike that they must have had a common origin. Our
readers will remember that in the myth used by Virgil for his story of Dido, the
queen's sister is named Anna.
RELIGION. 75
celestial virgin " or " the genius of Carthage." Melkart, in whom
the Greeks saw a form of their Heracles, also had a temple, close
to the harbour, in all the Phoenician colonies."
Besides these great gods there were, at Carthage, others of less
importance, of whom we know little more than the names : Sakon,
Aris, Tsaphon, males, Illat and Astorct, females, and others who
are alluded to in the texts by such phrases as " the great mother,"
" the mistress of the sanctuary."
During the two centuries which preceded the fall of Carthage,
her religion became stongly tinged with Hellenic elements,3 but
down to the very end certain rites held their own, which by their
cruelty bear witness to the hardness of the Phoenician character.
With the Carthaginians, as with all other races of antiquity, the
sacrifice was the chief act of worship ; it was the rite which brought
man nearest to his god and gave him the strongest claim upon the
protection of heaven. We can easily understand how savage
nations thought they could not do honour to their ferocious
deities better than by sacrificing members of their own race ; but
as manners softened under the influence of civilization, the idea of
a substitute won gradual but universal acceptance. The substitu-
tion was effected in many different ways. " Sometimes a domestic
animal, a ram, an ox, a bird, or a stag, was immolated in place of
the being to be spared ; sometimes the substitute was a stone,
which was erected in honour of the god and became a kind of
metaphorical sacrifice." 4
Neither in Egypt nor in Chaldaea have we yet found any trace
of human sacrifices, while the Greeks abandoned the custom at a
very early date. But among the Phoenicians, and especially the
Phoenicians of Africa, these holocausts lasted as long as the gods
in whose honour they had first been instituted. They were
celebrated at Carthage at a time when human sacrifices roused no
1 Upon the Virgo Celestis of classic writers, of coins and inscriptions, see
ECKHEL, Doct. num. ret., vol. vii. p. 183. In the text of the treaty between Philip
and Hannibal, which has been handed down to us by POLYBIUS (vii. ix. 2), it must
be Tanit who is disguised under the name Ka/mxr/Soi/iW Sat/iwv, in a triad
where that deity is followed by Heracles (Melkart) and lolaos (Esmoun).
~ BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 22. FR. LEXORMANT, Manuel d'Histoire ancienne,
vol. iii. p. 227.
3 DIODORUS, xiv. xxvii. 5.
4 PH. BERGER, La Phenicie, p. 26.
76 HISTORY OF ART IN PHU.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
feeling but disgust and horror in the rest of the civilized world.1
The Phoenicians had been hardened to the practice by long" tradi-
tion. Its commonest form was the sacrifice of first-born children,
or more generally, of newly-born infants. It was a way of devot-
ing first-fruits to heaven. At one time this custom was imported
from Phoenicia into Judaea. The Bible speaks of children burnt in
the fire, and passing through the fire in honour of Moloch,2 that is
of the solar or fire element worshipped by the Phoenicians under
several different names/' The fervour with which they entered
upon these holocausts was partly caused too by the idea that fire
purifies all it touches, that it takes away every stain. It was by
such complex sentiments as these that the Carthaginians were led
to turn to these horrible sacrifices whenever they found themselves in
a critical situation ; their fanaticism then blazed up afresh, and from
the open palms of the gigantic statue of Baal-Hammon children
of the noblest families rolled into the flames that played about
its feet.
The originality of the Phoenician religion lay chiefly in the
violence of its rites and in the contrasts they presented. The
voluptuous scenes which were being enacted hourly within the
precincts of Astarte were immediately followed by paroxysms of
barbarous devotion and by the murderous rites they provoked.4
How much more truculent and passionate all this proves the
Pruenicians to have been than such a people as the Egyptians, to
say nothing of the Greeks. They were, in fact, merchants and
sailors. There was no room in their lives either for literary and
philosophic culture, or for those aesthetic pleasures which soften
1 PHILO speaks of human sacrifices as a rite peculiar to the Phoenician race
(Fragm. Hist. Grac.t vol. iii. p. 570) ; but it would seem that, acting under Greek
influence, the Syrians abandoned them at an early hour. There is nothing to suggest
that the Tynans had recourse to them during the terrible siege by Alexander, when
the religious sentiment of the people must have been excited to its highest pitch.
2 II. KINGS xvii. 31 : xxi. 6.
3 According to TERTUI.LIAN these sacrifices were still openly persevered 'in as late
as the first century of our era (Apologia, cap. ix.). Their open celebration ceased
only when the Roman Emperors, beginning with Tiberius, decreed the penalty ot
death against any priest who should be accessory to them.
4 DIODORUS, xx. xiv. 5-6. JUSTIN, xviii. 6; PLUTARCH, De Superstitione, xiii.
We could quote numerous passages to show with what energy the conscience ot
the civilized world protested against these holocausts. We are told (JUSTIN, xix. i)
that Darius and Gelo wished to compel the Carthaginians by treaty to renounce
human sacrifices (PLUTARCH, De sera J\Tn»iiitis V'indicta, 6.
RELIGION. 77
the heart and elevate the mind. Torn on the one hand by their
sensual desires and on the other by greed of gain, hardened by
conflict with the sea and softened by the pleasures that awaited
them ashore, the Phoenicians swung from one extreme to another.
When their ventures were turning out badly, when their fleets
were threatened by storms or their armies pressed by the
enemy, they turned in despair to their gods and made those
impious vows which they carried out only too well. A people of
traders and harsh to their own debtors, they believed their gods
to be as exacting and pitiless as themselves ; hence the terrors
which led them to sacrifice so many young and innocent lives.
Under the impulse of sentiments which are to be explained by
the national habits, the Syrians and Carthaginians had, then, given
a peculiar character to their religion ; but they had not created the
gods whom they adored, and when they wished to give them
visible bodies they were quite unable to invent for themselves.
They borrowed the types and names of their gods from without,
and especially from Chalda^a. Baal is much the same as Bel,
and Tammouz is but little removed from the Dommouzi of the
Assyrian texts ; l Astarte and Tar.it do not greatly differ from
Istar and Anahit, while Baal-Hammon is neither more nor less
than the great Libyan god, the supreme deity of Egypt.2
Although the Phoenicians imported most of their gods from
Mesopotamia, they gave them Egyptian disguises. The Phoenician
civilization had its first development during the period of Theban
supremacy, and it borrowed types for its deities from the gods of
its Egyptian masters. The "great Lady of Gebal," on the stele
of Jehawmelek (Fig. 23), is very like an Isis-Hathor, and here
(Fig. 26) is a bronze, less ancient no doubt, which also comes from
Syria : its workmanship is not quite that of Egypt ; there is reason,
in fact, to believe that it was cast in Syria. It can be meant for
none but Astarte ; the disk and horns of the moon seem decisive
on that point ; but the forehead is surmounted by an asp, like the
1 FR. LENORMANT, Sovra /'/ mito d'Adone Tamuz (extracted from the proceedings
of the Congress of Orientalists, held at Florence in 1878).
2 The influence exercised by the rites and beliefs of Egypt over those of
Phoenicia did not escape the ancients. The pseudo-Lucian (Upon the Syrian
Goddess, § 5) declares its existence in so many words. According to Silius Italicus,
a mediocre poet, but a fairly well-informed savant, the rites celebrated in the temple
of Gades were Egyptian (iii. v. 20 et seq).
78 HISTORY OTF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
brow of I sis. So, too, the Phoenicians adapted the form of the
child Ptah to their Cabeiri and Pygmies (Fig. 27).
It was perhaps a sense of their shortcomings as plastic artists
that prevented the Phoenicians from placing statues of their great
v^/ 4^;^J
^'m
fe +W? /,*/&,.•,,-. Jsf'S,
FK;. 26— From a bron/e in M. I'erctie's collection. Ileiglit, l6| inches.
gods in their principal temples. It seems certain, from the often
quoted text of Herodotus,1 that the temple of Baal-Melkart, at
Tyre, inclosed no statute of the god ; he was represented only by
1 HERODOTUS, ii. 44.
RELIGION.
79
two columns, the one of gold, the other of emerald, or perhaps of
green glass, in which we must recognize betylae of an especially
sumptuous kind. These columns are figured on the two Maltese
pedestals consecrated to Melkart towards the beginning of the
second century B.C., by Abdosir and Osirsamar (Fig. 28).' Even
in the temple of Tanit at Carthage, whose august character is
FIG. 27. — Child god. From a Cypriot terra-cotta in the Louvre. Actual size.
attested by the thousands of votive steles set up in its precincts
•yve doubt whether there was any statue of the goddess ; and our
doubts are confirmed when we remember how rudely she is figured
on most of the steles set up in her honour. These figures are
nothing more than naive renderings of a conical stone, sometimes
1 Corpus Inscriplionum Setniti(&rum,^a.rl i. No. 122 and 122 fas.
80 HISTORY OF ART IN PHUINICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
with suggestions of a head and arms (Fig. 29), sometimes with
lunar symbols (Fig. 30) added to it.
The highest aim the artist can put before himself is to endow
the divinity with features that shall correspond to an ideal con-
ception of his majesty. Where no such effort is demanded of
him he may acquire great skill of hand and eye, but he will never
reach a hiorh decree of nobilitv and beautv. The relic from
Go * •/
Malta, which we reproduce in Fig. 28, allows us to draw the
horoscope of Phcenician sculpture. Two Greeks in a similar case
would have commissioned an image of Hercules in marble or
bronze, but these Phcenicians, who wished to do honour to their
Fir.s. 29 and 30. — From a Carthaginian votive stele.
, were content with such a shaft as the first workman at hand
could make.
But although the worship of betylae was not likely to favour
the progress of the plastic arts, we find in another part of the
Phcenician character a propensity which must have had useful
effects. Pupils as they were of Egypt, they never borrowed
those composite deities of hers with the heads of hawks, ibises,
cats, crocodiles, and hippopotamuses ; they only adopted such
divine types as were taken from humanity. How this reserve is
to be explained we cannot tell, but the fact is certain. Whenever the
Phoenicians had to provide a head or a complete body for any one
of their gods, they were as frankly anthropomorphic as the Greeks
FIG. 28.— Votive stele. From Malta. In the Louvre. Height 42 inches.
VOL. I.
M
THE PHOENICIAN WRITING.
themselves. The consequences, to which we shall have to draw
attention hereafter, may be guessed. When the Phoenicians began
to provide the still barbarous Greeks with those models which the
latter at once hastened to imitate, they did not put into their hands
any of those strange and graceless combinations of human and
animal forms of which the dwellers in the Nile valley were so
fond ; in the idols they exported no features but those of men and
women were to be found ; their execution was awkward and rough,
but it had at least the advantage of pointing to the right way,
to the only path by which a great art could be reached. Even the
brutality with which Syrian art insisted sometimes upon the dis-
tinctive features of the sexes had its uses. It excited the curiosity
of those who attempted to copy the Phoenician images, and awoke
in them the desire to make a close and patient study of the human
frame, the most delicate and complex of organic bodies. Thus
were they led to understand the difference between the two plans on
which Nature has built every living thing, a difference which shrinks
almost to effacement in those animals with which the religious
o
iconography of Egypt was content. As often happens when the
pupil is both more intelligent than his master and placed in more
favourable conditions, the Greeks learnt many 'things from the
Phoenicians that the latter did not know at all or knew but ill.
So that, in the statuettes of stone or clay which the Phoenician
merchants scattered broadcast over the whole Mediterranean basin,
we must recognize the elder sisters, or rather the grand-parents, of
those marvellous statues, of those noble and smiling goddesses,
before whom the Greeks bent in worship, and before whose
fragments we moderns bow in worship too.
§ 4. — The Phoenician Writing.
In this history of art we have been compelled to reserve an
important place for the written character of Egypt and Chaldaea.
In the older Mesopotamian monuments the cuneiform characters
are such that we can easily carry our thoughts to the time when
they were nothing less than pictures ; while the Egyptian hiero-
glyphs preserved that character to the end of their days. Some
peculiarities of treatment in Egyptian sculpture are even to be
84 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
accounted for, as we have elsewhere explained,1 by habits con-
tracted in the carving of hieroglyphs upon stone, wood, and other
materials.
There is nothing of the kind in Phoenicia. There we find no
trace of a time when thoughts were expressed in ideographic
characters. The Phoenicians learnt to write when they invented
the alphabet. No one believes that they created it " all standing,"
but it is still doubtful whether they took their materials from the
wedges or from the writing of Egypt."' Most scholars who have
recently studied the question believe with M. de Rouge, that the
borrowing was made from Egypt, and that it was made at a time
when a people related to the Phoenicians, the Hyksos of Manetho,
ruled in the valley, or at least in the delta, of the Nile.3 No doubt,
however, attaches to the right of the Phoenicians to the honour
of having made the decisive step which has given us the alphabet ;
the opinion of antiquity on the matter is summed up in two famous
lines of Lucan :—
" Phocnices prinii, famre si creditur, ausi
Mnnsuram rudibus vocem signare figuris." 4
1 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. II. pp. 315, 316.
2 M. DECKK has lately returned to the Assyrian cuneiform characters for the
originals of the alphabetical signs of Phoenicia (Der Ursprung des altsemitischen
Alphabets aus der Assyrischen Kdhchrift, in the /.eitschrift der dentschen Morgen-
Uecndischen Gesellschaft, 1877, pp. 102-154). As M. PH. BERGER has remarked, the
theory of M. Decke (which has, however, found few supporters) has authority on
its side which the learned German has failed to invoke, namely, that of PLINY.
" So far as I am concerned," says the latter, " I persist in believing the alphabet to
be of Assyrian origin. Literas semper arbitros Assyrias fuisse." He adds, however,
" Sed alii apud /Egyptios a Mercurio, ut Gellius, alii apud Syros repertas volunt."
l\rat. Hist., i. 412.
3 The work of M. DE ROUGE, which was read before the Academy as long ago as 1 859,
was only published in 1874, under the title Memoire sur F Origineeg)'ptienne deF Alphabet
phenicien. For more complete information on all these difficult questions we must
refer our readers to the work of the late M. FR. LENORMANT : Essai sur la Propa-
gation de r 'Alphabet phenicien dans Fancim Monde ; the first volume only has been
published (i vol. 8vo., Maisonneuve, 1872). M. PH. BERGER'S article in the
Encyclopedic des Sciences religieuscs (L Ecriture et les Inscriptions semitiques) may
also be profitably consulted. It is later in date (1880), and its author has been able
to make use of the information collected in preparing the Corpus Inscriptionum
Semiticarum. Finally, we may point to the article Alphabet (FR. LENORMANT) in
the Dictionnaire des Antiquites grecques et romaines.
4 LUCAN, Pharsalia, iii. v. 220-222. So, too, PLINY: " Ipsa gens Phcenicum in
magna gloria est litterarum inventionis " (Nat. Hist. v. xii. 13); DIODORUS SICULUS :
2upoi evperai TWV ypa/x/xaTwv curt (v. 74).
THE PIKKNICIAM WRITIXC. 85
" Here the evidence of writers is fully confirmed by the dis-
coveries of modern science. We know no alphabet, properly
speaking, which is earlier than that of the Phoenicians, and every
alphabet that has survived to our own day, or of which we have any
fragments, grows more or less directly out of the first alphabet
elaborated by the sons of Canaan and spread by them over the
whole surface of the ancient world."
Whether the Phoenician letters were derived, as M. de Rouge
believes, from the cursive writing employed on the papyri of the
first Theban empire, or whether, as some have lately contended,
they were taken directly, or at least in their chief elements, from a
few phonetic symbols occurring in the monumental character,2 it
now appears certain that the invention dates from a much earlier
period than wras formerly supposed. The oldest known alphabetical
inscription is that of Mesa, King of Moab, which dates from the
year 896 B.C., and it already contains evidence of great fluency and of
very long habit in the use of a written character.8 In such a matter
we can hardly suggest a date, but it seems very probable that the
Phoenicians were already in possession of their alphabet when they
first began to navigate the Levant.4 In any case the invention
o o J
was known to the first Sidonian sailors who landed on the coasts of
Greece and her islands. Thenceforward, on every shore frequented
by the Syrian ships, the savage ancestors of the Greeks might
group themselves about the stranger merchants, and with growing
curiosity watch them as they recorded the results of each day's
trade. The little writing-case (Fig. 31) which they drew from some
fold of their robes, the slender kalem, dipped in ink, which moved
so rapidly over clay tablet or papyrus strip, the small, crowded,
queer-shaped marks which were continually repeated, but ever in
some new combination, must all, for some time, have seemed parts
of some magic and therefore disquieting rite. We cannot say how
many years or centuries were required to carry the power and
purpose of those mysterious figures into their minds, but we may
be sure that as soon as a full comprehension dawned upon them
they became eager to apply them to their own language.
1 FR. LENORMANT, Essai sitr la Propagation de r Alphabet phcnirien, vol. i. p. 84
2 This is the opinion of M. HALEVY (.Melanges tf Epigraphie s'emitique. p. 168).
" PH. BERGER, L Ecriture et les Inscriptions semitiques, p. 15.
4 FR. LENORMANT, Essai, vol. i. pp. 95 and 101.
86 HISTORY 01 ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS I)FI>F.NDENCIFS.
FlG. 31. — Egyptian \\riting-c.ise.
I low were the Phoenicians themselves
led to embark on the path which ended
in their alphabet ? They borrowed her
arts and industries from Egypt, why
did they not borrow her writing' also ?
It was no doubt because they found it
too inconvenient, too complex, too diffi-
cult to master. The Egyptian writing
included ideographic symbols, some of
which were taken in their natural, others
in a metaphorical, sense. These were
combined with phonetic signs represent-
ing sometimes syllables, sometimes iso-
lated consonants. The same word or
idea might be rendered here by a single
ideogram, there by a combination of
various figures. This led to confusion,
and finally to the embarrassment of the
reader and to the possibility on his part
of continual mistakes. The people who
invented such a system, and persevered
in its use for thousands of years, did not
suspect its defects. There is no instru-
ment of which long hereditary custom
will not make man a complete master.
Scribes of the Ptolemaic and Roman
times sometimes arranged their symbols
as if they were amusing themselves by
making the inscriptions with which they
covered the temple walls as obscure as
they could. Was this because, as some
have declared, they did not want to be
understood ? Not at all ; they were
merely showing their skill by playing
with a difficulty, just as a modern virtuoso
plays with a difficult passage on the
pianoforte.
Drilled by constant practice from in-
fancy upwards into the use of this delicate
machine, the lettered Egyptian might
THE PHOENICIAN WRITING. 87
well have a genuine admiration for it, and speak of jt as a present
to men from Thoth, the ibis-headed god ; but to strangers wishing
to master it its merits would be less evident. To them the task
would be facilitated neither by native predisposition, nor by
the effects of a professional education begun at an age when the
freshness and elasticity of the memory allow much to be asked
from it. I doubt very much whether any man of foreign race,
either Greek or Syrian, ever managed to work his way into the
ranks of the Egyptian scribes, or even entertained such a hopeless
ambition. And yet to the Syrians wrho frequented the ports and
principal towns of Lower Egypt it must have been very tantalizing
to see the king's overseers and the nome princes taking account of
frontier dues, of the quantities of grain, and of the heads of cattle
and game which were sold in the markets.1 Such a sight must
have roused their envy much more readily than the pompous
inscriptions on the pylons and temple wTalls. Their ambition was
not of the grandiose kind. In this world, where other men thought
so much of gaining battles, their only wish was to gain money.
For their purposes it was all-important that they should master
some form of cursive writing. What an advantage it would
be to be able to write down day by day, or rather hour by hour,
all transactions begun or ended, and every engagement entered
into ; what a pleasure to have something to trust to beyond
memory, and especially beyond the memory of a debtor !
But the cursive writing of Egypt \vas hardly less difficult for
the stranger than the hieroglyphs. Like the latter it included
characters of very different values, and before it could be used
with any ease, the hieroglyphs themselves, of which it was in fact
an abbreviation, had to be learnt. Before a foreigner could manage
such a machine it required to be simplified ; the multitude of
symbols had to be reduced to a comparatively small number ; and
there was only one way of doing this with any success. In any
ideographic system of writing the symbols are no doubt less
numerous than the objects and ideas to be symbolized, but the
difference is comparatively small, and it is clear that any figurative
method requires a very large number of signs. The different
vowel-sounds in their union with the various consonants also give
rise to a good many combinations, so that a writing founded on
the notation of syllables requires a great many characters — there
1 Art in Ancient Egypt, \Q\. I. Figs. 19 and 21.
88 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
are a hundred or so in the cuneiform syllabary. But it is a
different matter if each separate character stands for nothing
beyond one of the elementary articulations of the human voice.
In no existing alphabet are there more than about twenty letters
corresponding to sounds between which the ear will make a real
distinction.
Among the phonetic elements of Egyptian writing there were
signs of this kind, real letters. The thing to be done was to
separate them from the signs of syllables, of objects, and ideas, to
take these letters and to leave to the scribes of Memphis those
other modes of notation which only served to complicate and
encumber their graphic system. How did the necessity for such
an operation suggest itself? Was it seen from the beginning that
only a portion of the Egyptian signs should be borrowed ? Were
there long periods of probation, or was the alphabet constituted at
once, on the principle which has given it such a prodigious success,
by the genius of a single man ? This question we shall never be
able to answer. The date of the invention of the alphabet, if it
had a date, is still more important in the history of civilization
than that of the invention of printing. To resolve a word into
its primitive elements certainly required a much greater effort of
the brain than to invent movable letters and print with them by
pressure. WTe can hardly look without emotion upon the Forty-
two-line Bible, which was printed at Mayence in 1456, but how
much more deeply should we be moved could we have placed
before our eyes the first inscription in which a Syrian scribe made
use of those twenty-two letters that, by a long series of insen-
sible changes, have taken the forms they bear on this page!
Gutenberg has his statues everywhere, the work of sculptors such
as Thorwaldsen and David d'Angers. Those honours are well
deserved, and yet the Phoenician who presented his country with
this marvellous instrument deserved them better ; but his name
was forgotten even by his countrymen. If we could catch a
glimpse into the profound darkness of the past, and recognize the
inventor of the alphabet among the innumerable ancestors of our
race, should we not lead him from the crowd and place him at the
head of the long procession of benefactors to humanity ?
One of the chief merits of the Phoenician alphabet lies in what
we may call its universal character. The elementary articulations
of the human voice are much the same among all peoples. Every
THE PHOENICIAN WRITING.
national keyboard lacks, indeed, one or two notes, but the chief
difference between one language and another can hardly be ex-
pressed in written characters ; it lies in the timbre, in the intona-
tion, or, if we may use the term, in the colour of the sounds.
Nothing is easier than to note, either by means of the Phoenician
alphabet, or of others founded upon it, the various articulations
that make up a local dialect or language. Any race in whom a
sight of this alphabet and of what it could do aroused a desire to
write on the same principle themselves could, no doubt, invent an
alphabet for their own use ; but, in those long ages of gradual
progress whose results are summed up for us in the word civili-
zation, the human intellect worked on no such lines. Man under-
stood how to utilize the discoveries of his ancestors, and to make
them points of departure for new adventures ; he did not waste
his time in doing over again what had been done, and well done,
already ; he set himself rather to revise and perfect.
To this rule the alphabet was no exception. All those peoples
who were in communication with Phoenicia by sea or land bor-
rowed her characters and adapted them by a few additions and
retouches to the notation of their own idiom. The Phoenicians
took the forms and values of their symbols from the cursive writing
of Egypt. By slow stages these symbols passed to the Hebrews,
to the northern Semites, or Aramaeans, to the Libyans through
Southern Arabia, and even to the Hindoos ; westwards they
spread among the Greeks, the Italiots, and even the distant tribes
of Spain. We cannot be surprised that in travelling so far their
aspect was greatly modified. To these changes many things con-
tributed ; different habits of hand, different materials, and different
social conditions among those who wrote. It is when we go back
to the oldest forms of the Phoenician alphabet itself, and of its
direct issue, that we find resemblances so strong that all doubt as
to their original identity is dispelled. Compare, for example, the
characters in the oldest Greek inscriptions from Thera with those
on the stele of Mesa or on the bronze cup inscribed with the
name of Hiram (Fig. 32). l The student of these early alphabets
will soon find, too, that it was not only the shapes of the characters
that changed, but also, though in comparatively few cases, their
phonetic values.
The Phoenician alphabet had no vowels. The reader was left
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. No. 6, and plate iv.
VOL. I. N
9O HISTORY OF ART IN PIUKNICIA AND ITS
to fill them in according to the sense of the phrase. Such a
want of definition must have been very inconvenient to the
Greeks. We know how great a part is played by vowels in
their methods of derivation, in their declensions and conjugations.
" To provide themselves with vowels the Greeks took the semi-
vowels of the Phoenicians, and as even these were not enough.
o '
they turned to the gutturals, so numerous in the Phoenician
alphabet, and there only used to make the language clear and
sonorous ; ioa and vav became I and Y ; alepk became A, ht E,
hctk H, ain O. Over vav the Greeks seem to have hesitated;
they took it up again and again as if they found it difficult to
exhaust the possibilities of a letter whose value, as in Hebrew,
was somewhat vague and floating. Thus we find that vav gave
birth successively to the Greek digamma and upsilon, and in Latin
to four letters : F, answering to the digamma, U, V, and Y." *
Fi<;. 32. — Fragment of a bronze cup French National Library.
By these observations we are enabled to form a fair judgment
of the services rendered to phonetic writing by the Greeks ; at the
first attempt they solved a problem which had always puzzled the
Semites. The latter tried now and then to note the vowel sounds
with precision, but during the whole existence of their idiom they
never quite succeeded ; the system of their primitive alphabet
was, in fact, unequal to the task. The vowel-points of the rabbis
of the sixth century of our era were applied, in a very artificial
way, to a language which was then dead. We have complete
proof that those signs give a false idea of the way the words of
the Old Testament were pronounced at the time they were first
written.2
1 BERGER, L ' Ecriture et les Inscriptions scmitiques, p. 17.
- Ibid.
THE PHOENICIAN WRITING. 91
The Phoenicians were very far from exhausting the uses of
the admirable instrument they had invented. They used it for
" keeping their books," but not for expressing their higher thoughts ;
they had no literature in the true sense of the word. They seem
to have written by preference on precious stones, where there was
room only for very short texts, and upon bronze, most of which
has long ago disappeared. " Before the discovery of Mesa's
inscription, one might have doubted whether epigraphy was made
use of by any Canaanitish people. Steles like those of Mesa must
have been rare, and as for the habit of putting inscriptions on
monumental buildings, on tombs, on coins, it cannot have dated
back beyond the day when imitation of the Greeks began. It is
so with the Phoenician coinage. There is no Phoenician money
anterior to the coinage of Greece and Persia. The inscription
of Esmounazar is equally modern ; and the awkward, laboured
way in which it is turned differs widely enough from the firm and
simple style of men who have written much upon stone. In place
of the grand manner of Greece and Rome, the only considerable
inscription that has yet been found in Phoenicia is nothing but the
long-winded verbiage of a narrow-souled individual oppressed by
terrors as to the fate of his own bones.1 . . . The very execution
of the inscription betrays a little-practised hand. The carver has
begun twice over, and the second time he has altered his process.
There is, too, something very strange in the monotony of the
Carthaginian epigraphy. Of two thousand five hundred known
inscriptions from Carthage, all but three or four are practically
identical.2 In short, the inventors of writing do not seem to have
written much, "and we may at least affirm that the public monuments
of Phoenicia were without inscriptions down to the Greek period."
Since attention was turned to this question by the action of the
Acadtmie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the number of Phoenician
texts has increased with great rapidity ; and yet, in the whole of
1 When M. Renan wrote these lines, in 1874, the stele of Jehawmelek had not
been published. There is nothing in it, however, to modify the judgment we have
quoted.
2 We may now be permitted to modify the figures given by M. Renan twenty
years ago. When he wrote the page we have quoted, M. de Sain te- Marie had not
yet collected and despatched to France those hundreds of steles on all of which
homage to " Tanit, face of Baal," is rendered in identical terms.
3 RENAN, Mission de P/ienicie, pp. 832, 833.
g2 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the vast repertory which we owe to the industry of M. Renan and
his colleagues, \ve cannot cite a single text that may be fairly
compared to those inscriptions of Greece and Rome in which the
voice of a great and free people makes itself heard across the
ages.
And in Phoenicia the form is worthy of the matter. There is
nothing in the appearance of the letters to captivate the eye or to
induce the mind to seriously weigh the sense. Phoenicia had no
special form of letters for monumental use. Her epigraphic alphabet
never lost its cursive look (Fig. 33). " In Phoenician inscriptions
we find none of those expedients with which the Greeks and
iJP?
''l(;- 33- — Fragment of a sepulchral cippu>. From Cypru-.'
Latins contrived to give an architectural character to their texts
on stone." : There is no care for symmetry, no variation in the
calibre of letters, no indication of proper names or important words
by capital letters. The characters are all the same height, and
their angular forms with long tails and variously sloping strokes
follow each other in well drilled ranks. The lines are not always
straight, and they are limited only by the field on which they are
traced. It certainly never dawned upon the mind of a Phoenician
scribe that an inscription might have its beauty even for those who
1 RENAN, Mission de Fhenide, p. 834.
2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. plate 8.
GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE STUDY OF PHOENICIAN ART. 93
could not read its words. All he thought about was to cut his
texts correctly on the stone. In its writing, as in its colonial system,
its art, and its industry, the Phoenician genius thought only of the
immediate practical result ; it was essentially utilitarian.
§ 5. — General Remarks upon the Study of Phoenician Art.
The study of Phoenician art is surrounded by quite peculiar
difficulties.. When we had to explain the arts of Egypt, Chaldaea,
and Assyria, and to form a judgment on their merits, we had
only to transport ourselves in imagination to the valleys of the
Nile, the Euphrates, and the Tigris ; it was enough to explore the
ruins of their buildings, and to examine the series of remains of
every kind which have been collected into public and private
museums. Phoenician art is not to be studied under such con-
ditions as these. Upon its native soil it has left but feeble traces.
Its debris must be sought for from one end of the Mediterranean
O
to the other. In that great collection of Phoenician texts in
which every inscription should at last find a place, there are only
nine from the Syrian coast ; ' Athens and the Piraeus have given
nearly as many, namely seven ; 2 Cyprus has furnished eighty-six ; 3
Malta and Gozo twelve ; 4 and Sardinia twenty-four.5 Those from
Carthage are counted in thousands.
The same observation applies to the remains of Phoenician art ;
these are nowhere so uncommon as in Syria. M. Renan, who
devoted a whole year to the exploration of Phoenicia, insists upon
this curious fact and explains it historically.
" The ancient civilization of Phoenicia has been more thoroughly
broken up than any other. A reason for this is to be found in
the fact that its habitat has always been very thickly peopled.
During the Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Crusading, and Mussulman
periods, they have never ceased to bufld, to re-work old stones,
to beat the great blocks left from ancient days into smaller units.
We may say that, for the last fifteen or sixteen centuries, very few
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. 1-9.
2 Ibid, pars i. 115-121. 3 Ibid. Nos. 10-96.
4 Ibid. Nos. 122-132 (including 122 bis and 123 bis).
0 Ibid. 139-162.
94 HISTORY or ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
stones have been cut from any quarry in Syria. The old blocks
have been made to serve again and again, until nothing of their
original physiognomy is left. The Crusades especially were
disastrous in this respect. The Templars, the Hospitallers, the
whole of the great feudal bodies of Syria, built gigantic walls for
their own defence, and as they were good builders and seldom
used a stone without having it first re-worked, the evidences of
the early civilization were widely obliterated. Hence the archaeo-
logical destitution of the coasts of Syria and Cyprus
" The situation of Phoenicia has Ind a great deal to do with the
destruction of its antiquities. Buildings near the seaboard run a
much greater risk of destruction than those hidden away in the
interior, especially in a country like Syria, where there were
neither roads nor vehicles, and where anything that was too heavy
for a camel had to stay where it was. But on the Phut:nician
coast a ship could be brought up close to any ancient building and
its stones removed with ease. It was thus that the pagan
Ephesus (which is distinct from the Christian Ephesus or A'ia-
Solo2tk) served as a marble quarry for the builders of Constantinople.
The enterprises of Djezzar, of Abdallah Pacha, of the Emir
Beschir, and, at an earlier period, those of Fakhreddin, had an
analogous effect in Syria. Similar causes have led to the rapid
disappearance of Athlith in our own days
" In Syria religious reactions were no less fatal to the monuments.
Christianity, so tender to antique works in Greece, was a great
destroyer in the Lebanon.1 The natives of the Lebanon, both
Mussulman and Christian, are, if I may venture to say so, quite
without the sentiment of art ; their feelings cannot be reached by
plastic beauty ; their first impulse at the sight of a statue is to
break it Finally, the greed of the natives has also been
the cause of wide destruction. They have broken up tombs and
destroyed inscriptions in their haste to get at the treasures within ;
every sepulchre that was not hidden has been broken to pieces.
.... Political anarchy and the absence of all public control have
contributed to the same result When we reckon up
all these conditions, and add to them the zeal of those modern
searchers for antique wealth who overrun the whole country, we
1 See the Mission de Phenicic, pp. 220, 287; and M. A.MKDKK THIERRY'S account
of the destructive missions of St. John Chrysostom, in the Rente des deux Monties
of ist January, 1870, pp. 52 et seg.
GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE STUDY or PHCENICIAN ART. 95
are surprised that a single vestige of the past remains in it. We
can hardly understand how it is that a few points on the coast,
such as Oum-cl-Aiuamid and Amrit,s\.\\\ preserve a few fragments
that have come down from a very remote antiquity."
Like the philologist and the epigraphist, the historian of art
would condemn himself to know very little indeed of the work
accomplished by this industrious people if he confined himself to
what he could learn within the narrow limits of Phoenicia proper,
a country of which we may say in the words of the poet that
"its very ruins have perished." The lives of the Phoenicians were
passed anywhere but at home. Many of them were born in the
colonies, and many no doubt lived and died without visiting their
mother city. If we wish to become well acquainted with the
people, and to trace out the various directions in which their ac-
tive intelligence made itself felt, we must imitate them in these
particulars ; we must take passage on their ships, and disembark
on all the shores they so long frequented. We must stay for a
time in their company, wherever they rested longest, and where
consequently there is the best chance of finding evidence of their
action and presence.
Acting on this plan we shall, in the first place, follow them to
Cyprus. Cyprus was not Phoenicia. At a very early date Greek
colonists landed on the island, and, establishing themselves side by
side with the Semites, soon contrived to divide the whole country
with them. But the chief maritime city, Kition, preserved its
almost exclusively Syrian character down at least to the prrtition
of Alexander's empire ; it was situated on the eastern coast of the
island, and formed a pendant to Tyre and Sidon. In other parts
also, as at Paphos on the southern coast, and in the interior at
Idalion and Golgos, Phoenician ideas had taken such deep root
that all the progress of the Greeks did not efface their traces.
We have already noticed the large number of Phoenician inscrip-
tions found in Cyprus, and, as might be expected, the number of
Phoenician objects made either in those Syrian towns with which
the island was in such constant communication or in the colony
itself, is also very great. At Kition, and in other towns, manu-
factories existed which were in fact no more than branch houses of
1 RENAN, Mission de Phenicie, pp. 816-819. See also pp. 154 and 155 in the
same book, where M. Renan gives details of the destruction by the modern vandal
of the antiquities of Byblos.
96 HISTORY OK ART i\ PIKKMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
those at Tyre and Sklon. It was the same at Carthage. As her
commerce and political importance developed, it became more and
more necessary that she herself should be in a position to produce
the objects with which she trafficked in the markets of the West ; all
the industries of the metropolis must in time have been acclimatized
within her walls, with their hereditary secrets and their accumulations
of motives and models. In most cases we are quite unable to
distinguish between a Phoenician vase made in Syria and one
turned out from an African workshop.
But Carthage is as bare as the Syrian coast of the works
of Phoenician architects and artisans. The real Carthage,
the Punic city, was twice destroyed by conquerors, who burnt,
dismantled, and demolished as soon as the place had fallen, and
the ruins they left were finally removed by the rebuilders of a
few generations later. Old materials were used again, and their
original features destroyed. The few monuments that may have
escaped destruction are now buried under such heaps of debris
that modern explorers of the site have hardly touched them
at any point. It is in Sicily, in Sardinia, and in Italy, that we
shall find the products of Carthage, just as we find those of Syria
in the islands and on the mainland of Greece. The remains of
antiquity are everywhere better preserved in Greece and Italy
than in Syria or Africa. Their vast cemeteries have handed
down to modern curiosity great collections of sepulchral furniture,
in which Phoenician art is largely represented both by works which
really belong to it and by the imitations which it provoked.
But it may be asked, How do we recognize this art in the
absence of examples found in Syria itself, or at least at Carthage,
which might give us types of the style and taste of Phoenicia ?
To this we answer, in the first place, that such examples are
not entirely wanting. Exhausted as it is, the soil of Phoenicia
has yielded a certain number of monuments by the careful
examination of which we can arrive at certain well defined
conclusions. By comparing these one with another, we obtain
at least the rough outlines of the formula we seek, and these
outlines become clearer in the light of Phoenician history.
Phoenicia was the vassal successively of Egypt and Assyria,
and in the objects that left her workshops she must have mingled
elements taken from both those great civilizations. Phoenicia
alone was in a position, by her geographical situation and the part
GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE STUDY OF PHOENICIAN ART. 97
she played in the antique world, to produce all those objects, now
so numerous and so well known, which are neither frankly
Egyptian, nor frankly Assyrian, and yet contain no important
elements from any other source. Finally, the Phoenicians now
FIG. 34. — Phoenician wall of Eryx.1
and then signed their works. In the ramparts of the great
city of Eryx, so famous for its shrine of the Syrian Astarte, the
marks of the Carthaginian masons have been found quite lately on
the stones of the lower courses (Fig. 34). This is almost always
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. plate 29 (p. 96).
VOL. I. O
9^ HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the same letter, a belli, usually from five to twelve inches
hitfh (I;'K- 35)-'
Our readers will remember the bronze platters which were
found at Nineveh ; many like them were found at distant points
on the Mediterranean, and from the first archaeologists have never
hesitated to ascribe them to a Phoenician origin. But that which
after all was no more than a very probable conjecture was
changed into certainty by the famous discovery at Palestrina :
upon one of these platters, found in 1876 in the necropolis of
the ancient Prameste, in the interior of Latium, a short but very
clearly engraved Phcenician inscription was discovered and read ; "
in all likelihood it gives us the name of the first owner of the
dish, rather than that of its maker :! it runs Esmunj air-ben- A sto
(Fig. 36). This point, however, is of slight importance; the
value of the discovery lies in the fact that vases, diadems, jewels,
etc., were found in the same tomb ; that they were made in
IMC. 35. — Crmhayiiiian mason's mark.1
the same way and decorated in the same spirit as the platter,
and that no reason can be named for giving them a different
origin. Here then we have a whole collection of objects, with the
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. No. 136. Beside beth, plic has been
tound once and ain seven times.
2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, p. i. No. 164. At the head of the article
devoted to this inscription by the editors of the Corpus will be found a list of all
the writings to which its discovery has given birth. The original of our reduction
(Fig. 36) is plate 32 of vol. x. of the Monimenti of the Jnstitut de Correspondancc
archeologique ; but aided by a fine photograph, for which we are indebted to the
kindness of M. Fiorelli, our draughtsman has endeavoured to give his figures a
sharper contour and to mark their relief with more accuracy.
1 M. RLNAN suggests that the name is that of some person deceased, to whose
memory the dish was consecrated, and whose person was symbolized by the hawk
which occupies the centre. We find it difficult to admit this explanation for an
object which was destined, by its very nature, to pass from hand to hand, and, as
the place of the discovery proves, to become an object of commerce.
4 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. plate 29.
GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE STUDY OF PHOENICIAN ART. 99
label, if we may use the word, of a Phoenician agent attached
to them. If we take them one by one, we may surely arrive at
an idea of the taste and methods of the Carthaginian worker
in precious metal ; I say Carthaginian because philologists have
marked a peculiarity in the text of this platter which suggests
an African rather than a Syrian origin.
FIG. 36. — Phoenician platter; silver. Diameter 7f inches. Drawn by Wallctt.
It will be seen, then, that the method we propose to follow
is less uncertain than it seems. No doubt we shall take our
examples from points very far apart, but that does not mean
that we shall take them at hazard. When we refer some
object found in a tomb at Mycense, in Etruria, or Sardinia to
ioo HISTORY <>i- ART IN PIKKNICTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Phd-nician workmen, \ve do so because its treatment is different
from that of any known local workshop, and because the salient
features of its decoration harmonize at all points with those with
which we have become familiar in our study of monuments drawn
from Phiunicia proper and with the few pieces that bear Semitic
inscriptions. In order to widen our field of choice we shall bring
back to the quays of Tyre and Sidon the objects carried by their
commerce to the four corners of the ancient world ; but, before
admitting a vase or a trinket into our museum, we shall look at
every side of it, and reject it unless it bears the undoubted stamp
of some industrial centre of the Phoenicians.
The Greek genius soon emancipated itself from the precepts
and example of Phoenicia ; it created an art far superior to that of
its masters, an art of great and commanding originality ; but
it was otherwise with some of the pupils of Tyre and Sidon.
Neither the Cypriots nor the Hebrews succeeded in shaking
off the ascendency of the Phoenician types. At Jerusalem, as at
Golgos, types were modified to a certain degree, for in the one
place the faith of the people was different, in the other their social
habits and the materials of which their artists and artisans made
use ; but in neither country did they examine nature closely enough,
in neither were their inventive faculties sufficiently alive, for their
art to win a really national and original physiognomy. Cypriot
art and Jewish art are no more than varieties, or, as a grammarian
would say, dialects, of the art of Phoenicia. We shall therefore
include them in the art history of the famous nation on the Syrian
coast. We shall also have to devote a short chapter to some
structures and bronze figures of a quite peculiar character, which are
found only in Sardinia. The fantastic statuettes and other objects
which have been met with in the ruins of the Sardinian towers
are, no doubt, the products of a local and indigenous art, but that
art was only developed on contact with the Phoenicians and while
they were masters of the seaboard. As we shall have no occasion
to revert to these rude works in the sequel of our history, our
examination of them will be given in the form of an appendix to
the present volume.
From all that we have said, our readers will perceive that our
present task is less easy than either of the two which have
preceded it. The art history of Phoenicia has many divisions
and subdivisions, and it presents another difficulty : its limits are
GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE STUDY OF PHOENICIAN ART. 101
hard to define ; it is difficult to fix upon a date at which our
labours should close. Egyptian art always remained faithful to
itself and to its principle. Down to the appearance of the
Ptolemies every change was made on the sole basis of its own
past ; it had never come under foreign influence. Of the art
of Chaldaeo- Assyria we may say the same. It had produced
all the works we have described 1 before the development of the
Greek genius had gone far enough to penetrate those distant
countries and to impose its own models upon their inhabitants.
With Phoenicia, and still more with Cyprus, it was otherwise. The
plastic genius of their inhabitants was not very pronounced, and
the example of Greece began to have its effect upon them at
a very early hour. As they had imitated Egypt, Chaldsea, and
Assyria in their order, so they began to imitate Greece as soon as
the latter had created her architectural orders and had learnt
to give the human form a truth and nobility unknown before
her time.
And as generation followed generation, and the art of the
Greeks mounted higher and higher, the influence they exercised
over the whole Mediterranean basin, with the one exception of
Egypt, became more and more decisive. After a certain date
Cyprus and Phoenicia hardly fashioned an object in which a
knowledge of Hellenic types is not betrayed in some detail of
form or ornament. It may be thought that such objects should
be left for discussion when we come to treat of the art of Greece,
or should be disregarded altogether. But the remains cf the
primitive and purely Oriental period are too scanty both in
Phoenicia and Cyprus ; certain methods of production and certain
ornamental motives are only known to us through these monu-
ments of the transition. It is of great importance that motives
taken from Egypt and Mesopotamia and the local practices of
the Syrian workmen should be traced even in things governed as
a whole by Greek taste ; we have no other means of showing how
closely long practice and hereditary predisposition had attached
these Oriental artists to methods and types which they continued
to employ long after all their surroundings had changed, and after
they themselves had begun to prefer Greek to their own national
1 History of Art in Ancient Egypt, 2 vols. 8vo (1883), and History of Art in
Chaldcea and Assyria, 2 vols. 8vo (Chapman and Hall, 1884).
iO2 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
idiom. The question as to how far we should go in this direction
and what criterion we should use in deciding that this or that
monument deserves a place in a history of Phoenician art is one
of tact and appreciation. The threat tiling is to make sure that
every fragment of sculpture or architecture mentioned in these!
pages is capable of adding to our knowledge.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE' GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PHOENICIAN
ARCHITECTURE.
§ i. — Materials and Construction.
PHOENICIA is a country of mountains. The whole territory is
cut up by the Lebanon and by the spurs it throws out westwards to
the sea. Consequently there is no lack of stone, but its quality is
mediocre. Neither marble nor sandstone are to be found. Near
Safita, as in certain cantons of Galilee, a few quarries exist, but
their produce has hardly been taken beyond the immediate district.
The common material of the country is a rather soft calcareous
stone, which crops up through the surface of the soil.
The first idea of the tribes who came to settle in the coun-
try must have been to cut the living rock where they found it.
Wherever it did not stand above the qround in ridges or isolated
o o
masses, it was to be encountered at a very slight depth under the
thin stratum of vegetable earth which was deposited in the valleys,
at the feet of the cliffs, and on the less abrupt slopes from the hills
to the sea. From one end of maritime Syria to the other, tombs
were hollowed in the rock down to the last days of antiquity ; and
such labours were undertaken for the living as well as the dead.
o
In the beginning, perhaps, the settlers took up their abode in
natural grottoes, which could be easily enlarged and made more
convenient, and even in later days, \vhen their ideas had outgrown
those humble dwellings, they continued to profit by the accidents
of their rocky territory. Thus " one of the most curious of the
remains at Amrit is a monolithic house, cut entirely from a single
mass of rock (Fig. 37). The material was cut away in such a
fashion that only thin walls and partitions were left adhering to
iO4 HISTORY OK ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the soil. The principle facade, which faces westwards, is one
hundred feet long. The depth of the house is also about a
hundred feet, the height of the walls is about twenty feet and
their thickness about thirty-two inches. The interior was divided
Fit;. 37. — Rock-cut house .it Anirit. From Kenan.
into at least three chambers by partitions left in the same way.
The external wall to the north was artificial ; its lowest courses
are still to be found hidden in the soil, the south wall was partly
rock, partly masonry." In the island situated to the north of the
FIG. 38. — Rock-cut walls at Saida. From Kenan.
modern town of Saida the rocky soil still bears traces of similar
works. The lower parts of walls are shaped as they stand ; we
find them pierced in many parts with niches and rectangular or
1 REN AN, Mission de P/ienide, p. 92.
MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION.
105
roundheaded doorways ; in a few instances even partition walls
are rock cut. (Fig. 38). 1
FIG. 39. — Fragment of the map of Amrit. Fr
We find the same contrivance in a curiously arranged temple,
which must have been one of the earliest of the shrines of Marath.
FIG. 40. — The Tabernacle of Amrit. From Renan.
A large quadrangle, 192 feet by 160, has been cut in the living rock
(Fig. 39). In the centre has been left a block some twenty feet
1 RENAN, Mission de Phenicic, p. 363. 2 Ibid. pp. 62-68, and plates viii. and x.
VOL. I. P
io6 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
square and ten high. Upon this cubical mass, which is one with
the actual floor of the temple, has been built a small tabernacle
which we shall have to examine in detail in our chapter on religious
architecture (F"ig. 40). A similar mingling of the two processes is
to be found in the remains of the formidable ramparts with which
the island of Arvad was surrounded. The built part of the wall
rests upon a rock-cut plinth some twelve or fourteen feet high
(Fig. 7) ; the same arrangement may be traced in the debris of
the Phoenician walls at Sidon (Fig. 41). Like the temple court
at Marath the ditch is cut in the rock. Another example of this is
to be seen at Semar-Gcbeyl, where a castle built in the middle ages
has profited by the gigantic works undertaken for the guarding of
an old Giblite fortress against a sudden assault.1 Finally, at Arvad
and many other places we find cisterns, silos and the containers of
Fir.. 41. — Remains of the walls of Sidon. From Rcnan.
wine-presses hollowed in the soft rock, the surface of which was
rendered fit for its purpose by a coat of stucco.2
We may here quote a text from an old historian which proves
that these habits of the Phoenicians excited remark even from their
contemporaries : " When the Phoenicians began to settle in great
numbers on those rocky shores to which they were attracted by
the richness of the purple dye, they built houses for themselves
and surrounded them with ditches ; as they cut the rock for this
latter purpose, they used the material removed for the walls of
their towns, and so protected their ports and jetties."'
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 244, and plate xxxvii. - Ibid. p. 40, and plate iii.
3 CLAUDIUS IOLAUS, quoted by Stephen of Byzantium, s.v. Aw/>a. This method
of extracting the wall, so to speak, from its own ditch, was used at Arvad, at Tortosa,
at Anefe', and at Semar-Gebeyl.
MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION.
107
Building proper was only turned to in the last extremity, when
there was no rocky site available. But by its very nature rock could
only be used for the substructures of buildings ; it broke off short
at the level of the soil, while its irregular and capricious forms put
great difficulties in the way of those who tried to make excessive
use of it. The idea of finishing the work by means of cut blocks
must soon have occurred to the builders. At first it was a mere
question of adding a little here and there to the rock-cut walls,
and the larger the applied masses the better were those early
FIG. 42. — Substructure of one of the temples at Baalbek. From Lortet.
constructors pleased with their work. Their point of departure
was what has been called monolithism? and from it Syrian and
Phoenician builders never entirely shook themselves free ; traces
of it may even be found in the Roman period, in the substructures
of the temples at Baalbek (Fig. 42). 2
1 REN AN, Mission de Phenicie, p. 315.
2 Our readers will remember the famous trilithon of Baalbek, the three stones
which crown the platform of the Temple of the Sun ; they are respectively 63 feet
8 inches, 60 feet 3 inches, and 64 feet 2 inches long. On the northern face, the face
shown in our woodcut, six blocks of hardly less astonishing size form by themselves
io8 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
The effects of this propensity are to be most clearly traced in the
wall which still exists on the south and west of the island of Arvad
(Fig. / )• " Carried on the outer edges of the rocks, it is composed
of quadrangular prisms ten feet high and from about twelve to
sixteen feet long ; these prisms are fixed sometimes with skill and
care, sometimes with strange negligence ; in some places joints are
allowed to vertically coincide, in others they are alternated with
great elaboration. Sometimes the courses are regular, with their
interstices closed by small blocks ; elsewhere they are not even
dressed to an even front, although the lines of the courses are
always horizontal. The ruling idea of the builders was to make
the best possible show with the finest blocks. A huge stone com-
manded its own place. No sacrifice of its mass was made, it was
put wherever its size would be most imposing, and the hollows
about it were filled in with smaller stones. . . . There was no
cement .... I do not think there is any ruin in the world more
imposing, more characteristic. There can be no doubt that it is
a relic from the ancient city of Arvad, a really Phoenician work,
and affording a criterion for other buildings of the same origin. It
is entirely built of the indigenous stone of the place ; its materials
were taken, in fact, from the great ditch which separates it from
the modern town." '
The solidity of this architecture was not in due proportion to the
size of its units.2 To obtain the height they required the builders
were often obliged to bed the stone the wrong way ; the slightest
"vent" was then fatal to the structure. And the limestone of
those coasts is apt to crumble, so that small stones when asked to
support great blocks were crushed by their weight ; this we find
a wall 60 feet long. M. DE SAULCY believes that these enormous substructures
date from an epoch much earlier than the temples they support (Revue Archeologique,
2nd series, vol. xxxiii. p. 267) ; other travellers think the same, notably M. G. REY
(Rapport snr une Mission en Syne, in the Archives des Missions, 1866, p. 329).
To me, however, the hypothesis in question is rendered very doubtful by the simple
fact that these gigantic stones rest upon courses of well-jointed masonry in which
the single stones are of comparatively small size. Taken by themselves, we should
hardly refer these courses to an earlier epoch than that of the Seleucidae. More-
over, we find that in the undoubtedly Roman parts of the work units of extraordinary
size have been used, as, for example, in the monolithic jambs of the doorway of
the round temple, which dates from the decadence. S§e M. KENAN'S reflections on
this subject and the doubt he expresses as to the theory of M. de Saulcy (Mission,
pp. 3 1 4-3 1 6).
1 RENAN, Mission de Fhenicif, pp. 39, 40. and plate ii. 2 //>/,/. p. 67.
MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION.
109
has happened in the temple at Amrit to the blocks interposed
between the monolithic base and the huge slab which forms the
roof. These smaller stones are greatly frayed away, and will in
time be reduced to powder. Add to all this that the inequality in
the materials and the method of filling in renders these Syrian
structures very sensible to the shocks of earthquakes, and it will
be understood that they are farther removed from the solidity
of native rock than those Greek structures in which smaller units
were used, but used with a skill that endowed them with a high
power of resistance.
The habits contracted in its early years never entirely dis-
appeared from Phoenician architecture. In Greek construction
each stone had its own part to play in the work to which it
FIG. 43. — Square pier from Gebal. Height 35 inches. From Rermn.
belonged ; it was the member of an organic body, and the Greeks
understood at a very early date that not more than one member
should be combined with each constructive unit. In Syria the
architectural idea and the constructive units did not preserve this
logical connection ; when the Phoenicians made use of the column,
they, like the Assyrians, carved it all, shaft and cap, from a single
block. We take an example of this from the ruins of Gebal
(Fig- 43)-1
To their fondness for using the stone as it came from the quarry
may be traced the Phoenician habit of employing what is called
rustication ; it seemed natural to their masons to be content with
dressing the edges of the joints and to leave the rest of their wall-
1 RENAN, Mission de rhenidf, p. 175, and plate xxv.
i io HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NK IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
faces in their native rudeness. For a long time, in fact, this
arrangement was looked upon as the distinctive peculiarity of
Phoenician masonry, as the stamp by which it could be most easily
and most surely recognized. The rampart of Tortosa, the castle
at Gebal, and certain parts of the " Tower of the Algerines " at
v •: V
FlG. 44. — Wall of Tortosa. From Kenan.
Sour, where the irregular courses are made to fit by the intro-
duction of L-shaped stones (see Fig. 45) were looked upon as
standard examples.1 This notion must now, however, be aban-
doned. M. Thobois, the architect who accompanied M. Renan
examined all these structures very carefully, and the result of his
FIG. 45.— Masonry from the Tower of the Algerines. From Renan.
observations caused the latter to reconsider his first ideas. It
now seems to be clearly proved that the walls of Tortosa and
those of the castle at Gebal both date from the middle ages.2
The masons employed by the great military orders in the con-
struction of these walls went to the quarry for no great proportion
of the blocks they used ; they made the stones of the old buildings
with which the Phoenician coast had been fringed for so many
generations serve again in the new, and the narrow, smoothly
1 RENAN, Mission, plate xxv.
2 See M. KENAN'S observations on this subject (Mission, pp. 47-54 and 164-172).
The question was one of great importance. Upon its resolution in one sense or the
other depended, in no slight degree, our notions upon the habits and processes of
the Phoenician architect.
MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION.
1 1 1
chiselled border in which the hand of the Giblite masons was
formerly seen is no more than the signature of those who worked
for the Hospitallers and Templars.
On the other hand, many examples of channelled masonry may
be found among the antique monuments of Judaea, of that Judaea
which was the scholar of Phoenicia in all the manual arts. It
appears difficult to allow that the Jews made use of methods un-
FlG. 46. — Wall of a temple at Malta.
known to the Phoenicians, but it is none the less certain that the
only really ancient building in Phoenicia in which this channelled
masonry has been encountered is the tomb at Marath, known as
the Burdj-el-Bezzak, or " Tower of the Snail " (Fig. 6). There we
find a very strongly marked rustication, but only on the sub-
structure.1 To find another example we have to come down to a
1 See RENAN, Mission, pp. 80-90, and plate xiv.
ii2 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
temple dating from the reign of Augustus, the ruins of which are
to be seen at El Belat, in the neighbourhood of Byblos.1 No
rustication is to be found either at Arvad, or in those parts of the
walls of Sidon which are believed to be Phoenician (Fig. 4i).2
We must then, at least for the present, give up the notion of
seeing a characteristic of Phoenician architecture in this way of
finishing a wall. On the other hand, all the examinations that have
been made, outside Syria, of buildings ascribed to the Phoenicians
on one ground or another, confirm what we have said as to their
love for materials of great size, often but roughly dressed and laid
one upon another without cement. Sometimes, as for example in
FIG. 47. — The wall of Hyrsa. From Bculc
the monuments of Malta and Gozo, there are no regular courses ;
the walls look like the primitive Cyclopean walls of Greece. We
give an instance of this in Fig. 46, which shows one entrance to
the building whose still unexplored ruins are to be seen at Malta,
at Burdj-en-Nadur, above the port of Marsasirocco, and about
280 yards from the sea.3
At Carthage, on the other hand, in those walls of Byrsa which
were disengaged at several points by Beule — only, however, to be
1 REXAN, Mission, p. 223.
2 Ibid. p. 362, and plate Iviii. figs, i, 2, and 3.
3 A. CARUANA, Report on the Phoenician and Roman Antiquities in the Group of
the Islands of Malta (8vo, Malta, 1882), pp. 17-19.
FORMS. 1 1 o
very soon covered up again by the fall of the excavated earth — a
masonry hardly inferior to that of the Greeks may be recognized ;
but the blocks are larger as a rule than those employed in Greece ;
some of the stones are five feet lono^, more than four feet hieh, and
O O '
between three and four deep, measurements which give a cube of
considerable size (Fig. 47). l
Having thus an abundant supply of easily worked rock close at
hand, the Phoenicians of Syria seem to have made no use of
artificial stone, at least before the Roman period. No brick
structure has been found in the country. Elsewhere, however,
they did not refuse to employ a material which must have be-
come well known to them during their voyages into Egypt and
Mesopotamia. It has been asserted that some of the Cyprian
temples ascribed to the Phoenicians have been been built on a
system often followed in Assyria. They have crude brick walls
standing on a substructure of masonry.2
§ 2. — Forms.
The monuments of which the soil of Phoenicia can still show
some traces may be divided into three classes :—
1. Old monuments, dating from a time anterior to the first
glimmerings of Greek taste ; as, for example, the remains at
Amrit (Figs. 6 and 40).
2. Mixed monuments, on which the ideas, habits, and style of
Phoenicia have left their trace, but which date from the Greek or
Roman periods and bear the mark of Graeco- Roman influence; of
such is the stone in the baptistery of Gebal (Fig. 48). 3
3. Monuments purely Greek or Roman, such as the theatre at
Batroun.4
Here we have nothing to do with monuments in the last-named
c>
category ; as for those in the second they afford many useful points
of comparison, and the persistence with which motives quite
Oriental in character hold their ground proves how dear they were
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage (4to, 1861, 6 plates), pp. 59-62.
2 G. COLONNA CECCALDI, Revue Archeologique (2nd series, vol. xxii. p. 362).
3 REN AN, Mission, pp. 157, 158.
4 M. RENAN was the first to establish this classification ; its foundations appear
sound (Ibid. pp. 835, 836).
VOL. I. Q
ii.| HISTORY OK ART IN PIM.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
E. • »
A
•
to the Syrian ornamentist and
how hard he found it to abandon
their use.
Thanks to the collateral
evidence furnished bv the
*
numerous buildings which mari-
time Syria erected during the
period of the Seleucida: and
the Roman emperors, we ought
to be able, with sufficient ease
and certainty, to formulate the
governing theory of her archi-
tectural forms and decorative
principles, but the present
miserable condition of the re-
mains both of ancient Phoenicia
and of Phoenicia after classic
art began to affect her, is the
cause of very great embarrass-
ment. The works of Syrian
artists had no protecting gar-
ment like the sands of Egypt
or the crude brick crumbled of
the Assyrian palaces. Neither
had the ruins on the Phoenician
coast the good fortune to stand
in a district almost devoid of
population, like the Haouran
and the north-west of Syria.
The desert is the most faithful
of all curators, but in the narrow
lands of maritime Syria, which
have never ceased to be well
peopled, to be washed by the
rains of winter and by mountain
torrents, only those works of
man could subsist which were
either hidden in the bowels of
the earth or, when raised above
its surface, were protected by
FORMS. 1 1 5
the unwieldy size of their materials and by the equilibrium that
results from extreme simplicity of plan.
It would then be futile to expect anything in Syria that could
be compared to the hypostyle halls of Egypt and Persia or to
the Assyrian palaces. The chief remains, and those in very
bad condition, are sepulchral pits, small buildings resembling not
a little both in solidity and in appearance the rocks of which
their bases form a part, fragments of walls, cones and pyramids
raised upon tombs, and monolithic chapels. Our hopes of new
discoveries are not very sanguine, and meanwhile we must do
the best we can with those already made, and endeavour to define
what appear to have been the characteristic forms of Phoenician
architecture. Our aim is to give a true description of its spirit
and general methods. If we succeed, the surprises which the
future may, after all, have in reserve, will enable our successors
to fill in our definitions and to enrich them with details now
beyond our grasp, but our framework will remain in spite of
all retouches.
In all the really ancient fragments of Phoenician buildings that
remain to us the shape of the stones is rarely, if ever, determined
by the functions they have to fulfil. Each block did not become,
as in Greece, a separate unit with an individuality of its own. If
there be any one mode of construction that leads more surely to
this individuality of the unit than another it is the vault, where
each voussoir has its own special form and is only fitted for that
particular spot in the curve for which it has been prepared. But
the vault is generally the result of a desire to employ small
materials, to cover a void with stones too small for use in any
other fashion ; and we have seen that the Phoenicians had a strong-
predilection for large stones, which they could obtain everywhere
at the very foot of any work on which they might be engaged ; so
that the habits and preferences of their builders did not predispose
them to make use of the arch. They must have been acquainted
with its principle, seeing how incessantly they travelled in Egypt
and Mesopotamia ; but hardly a sign of it is to be found in any
building which we have good reason to ascribe to them either upon
the soil of Syria or in any of the colonies. The only monuments
in which that system of covering a void has been used, so far as
we know, are two or three sepulchres in the necropolis of Sidon,
among them that of Esmounazar, and these are scarcely older
ii6 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
than the time; of Alexander.1 Nowhere else do we find the
slightest trace of a voussoir. This well-ascertained fact confirms
v>
the hypothesis to which our reasoning has been directed. If the
Pha-nicians made use of the vault at all, it was at long intervals
and on quite exceptional occasions. It is difficult to see how any
arch whatever could be introduced into such walls as those of
Arvad or of the temples of Malta and Gozo, among blocks which
the mason set in place exactly as they came from the quarry.
On the other hand, nothing could be easier than to cover any open-
ing, lintel-wise, with the longest stone that might happen to be at
hand. Other blocks of the same nature furnished the horizontal
lines of the cornice, which, moreover, they soon learnt to chisel
into ornamental forms. Every building must have ended in a flat
roof, a covering which is almost universal in Syria at the present
day."2
Another characteristic of Phoenician architecture is to be ex-
plained by its early predilections. Born of the living rock, which
it fashioned in a hundred ways, on which it reposed, which it con-
tinued and prolonged, it had no liking for any kind of open
construction, and especially made slight use of the pier and
column.
Very few fragments of columns, and those very small, have
been found among the ruins of truly Phoenician buildings. A
study of these remains brings out the fact that columns were
almost always used as ornamental motives in the form of pilasters.
They did not support the roof and framework of the building
as in Egypt, Persia, and Greece.
Reduced thus to play the part of a mere accessory, the column
was not divided into different members, as it was among people
who made a wider use of it. It was not turned into a kind of
organic being by separating and clearly defining its different parts.
We do not possess a single Phoenician base, but the capital, as in
Assyria, was in one piece with the shaft. The column was, as a
rule, a monolith, and on those few occasions when it was made up
1 In our chapter on " Sepulchral Architecture " we shall give a section of these
tombs, taken from the Corpus Inscriptionum Scmiticarnm. See also in M. GAIL-
LA ROOT'S journal of his excavations (A fission, p. 437) the mention of another arched
tomb chamber. It contained an anthropoid sarcophagus.
2 "The early Phoenicians were unacquainted with the arch," says M. RENAN
(Mission, p. 408).
FORMS.
1 1
of several pieces, as in some of the Cyprian remains in the Louvre,
the sections occurred at random, being governed only by the
shape and size of the stones, and not by the natural articulations
of the support as a whole.
This being their general character, we have now to distinguish
the peculiarities, I can hardly say of the Phoenician column,
FIG. 49. — Capital at Golgos. From Ceccaldi.1
because that had no constant and well-marked features of its
own, but of those columns which have been found in Phoenicia
and Cyprus.
As a rule, their shafts are smooth and without fluting. The
forms of the capitals have much variety. In some we find the
FIG. 50. — Capital from Edde. From Kenan.
elements of the Grecian Doric capital, but with different curves
and proportions. The nearest approach to the classic type has
been found at Golgos (Fig. 49). The slight salience of the
echinus and the great thickness of the abacus give a more
peculiar physiognomy to one from Edde, near Byblos (Fig. 50).
1 Monuments antiques dc Cypre, p. 42.
ii8 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
The Tuscan capital, as described by Yitruvius, must have been
very much like this. In the same group we may place the capital
of a square pier at Hyblos (Fig. 43), which has a quite peculiar
profile. The shaft ends in a bold torus, which, again, is allied to
the abacus by a scotia.1
In some other examples we recognize the principle of the Ionic
capital. Several have been brought from Cyprus, where they
crowned columns which once, in all probability, formed parts of
tombs. They are very ornate. The simplest, which was found
at Trapeza, near Famagousta, has two large volutes rising from
a single base and crossing each other at the foot, and surmounted
by an abacus divided into three fascias. It is ornamented on
FIG. 51. — Cypriot capital. Louvre.2
both faces (Fig. 51). A capital from Athieno is still more curious
in its arrangements. Above the chief pair of volutes there
are two more turned the other way up. The space between
their curves is filled up with a graceful ornament of lotus flowers
and stems. A less happy note is struck by the sharp point of the
triangle which rises between the twro large volutes. The three
fascias of the abacus have perpendicular markings or grooves
(Fig. 52). In a third capital we find the same design carried out
in a slightly more elaborate fashion. There are three pairs of
volutes instead of two ; the lotus bouquet is a little fuller and more
complex, and the abacus is decorated with chevrons instead of
1 REN AN, Mission, p. 175.
- Height, 30 inches ; length of abacus, 49 inches : thickness, 12 inches.
FORMS.
119
vertical strokes (Fig. 53). Unfortunately this capital is in much
worse condition than the other two ; both the "Teat volutes have
o
been broken off, and it has suffered in other respects. When
FIG. 52. — C \priot capital. Louvre.1
perfect, it may perhaps have been the chef d1 oeuvre of the Cyprian
decorator. It shows both invention and richness of taste, but as
a whole it is a little heavy ; it is the outcome of an art which,
FIG 53. — Cypriot capital. Louvre.
though not content with the first thing that comes, has not yet
learnt to choose, to refine, to carry out with a light and discrim-
inating hand. At Cyprus this heaviness of terminal forms was
1 Height, 42 inches ; length of abacus, 47 inches ; thickness, 8 inches.
i2o HISTORY OF ART IN PIKENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
sometimes still more marked, as, for instance, in the ornament
from a funerary stele which we reproduce in Fig. 54. The lower
part of this monument has disappeared, but judging from the
shape of its crown it must have seemed poor and meagre in
comparison with the tablet and the two lions crowded on to it.
1 '•'•;• "jt A v Y
FIG. 54. — Ornament from a Cypriot stele. Louvre.1
The Cypriot capitals had, then, plenty of variety. There are one
or two among them in which we seem to recognize a first sketch
for the Corinthian capital. We have its skeleton, so to speak, in a
fragment from Athieno which is only known to us in a mediocre
FIG. 55. — Cypriot capital. From Cecealdi.-
drawing here reproduced (Fig. 55). Its principal member is a
calatkos, as the Greeks called it, a mass in the form of an inverted
1 Extreme width, 38 inches.
2 Monuments antiques tic C\pre, p. 43 The longest side of the abacus measures
23 inches.
FORMS.
I 2 1
bell with a flat bottom and a decoration of sinuous vertical streaks.
Upon this rests a thin abacus standing out far beyond the cap
it covers. Another capital from the same place is rather less far
removed from the Greek type we have mentioned. The calathos
is ornamented with leafy branches, reminding us of the acanthus
leaves on the same part of the Corinthian capital. A very thick
abacus is decorated with three rows of chevrons, each row
separated from those above and below it by fillets (Fig. 56).
The worst fault of this design lies in its bad proportions, but, as
a whole, it is more fantastic than the capitals with volutes, whose
curves, suggested to the architect by the behaviour of copper or
silver under the hammer, are never without a certain grace.
FIG. 56. — Cypriot capital. From Ceccaldi.1
It must have been in capitals of this latter form that metal
supports, or wooden columns overlaid with metal, terminated. In
Phoenicia, as in Egypt and Chaldsea, these slender shafts must
sometimes have been used, as, for instance, in the support of the
salient parts of a building or of porticoes. The penthouse of the
Amrit tabernacle seems to have been thus upheld by bronze
columns of which traces have been found on the entablature.2 Not
that the latter requires any supports, but the probability of their
having nevertheless existed is rendered very strong by the ar-
rangements of the hypogeum near Cagliari, known as the Serpent
The greatest width of the abacus is
1 Monuments antiques de Cypre. p. 44.
\2\ inches.
2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 63, 64.
VOL. I.
R
122 HISTORY OF Aur IN PIKI.NK i.\ AM> ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Grotto (Fig. 57). This monument seems to date from the Roman
decadence, hut there are peculiarities ahout it which deserve
attention. To the under surface of the architrave the remains of
one or two capitals still cling, which, by their sixe, must have
belonged to very slender shafts indeed, so slender that it is in the
last decree unlikely that their material was stone.1 Phoenician
O J
was still spoken and written in Sardinia after the Roman conquest,"
and there is nothing- surprising in the fact that architects and
ornamentists should also have preserved their taste for arrange-
ments with which they had become familiar during the long
Pruimician supremacy.
Fit;. 57. —The Serpent (Jrotto. From Chipiez.'1
Besides the columns we have just described, which served either
as real or make-believe supports, the temples of Phoenicia and of
the countries over which her influence extended seem to have
possessed others which upheld nothing, but played a part not un-
like that of the Egyptian obelisks. No examples of these columns
have come down to us, but they may be recognized on several of
those coins whose types show the fronts of Phoenician or Cypriot
temples, on those, for instance, which preserve the appearance of
1 CHIPIF.Z, Histoire critique de rOrigine et de la Formation des Or if res grecs, p. 121.
- See Corpus Itiscriptionum Semiticarum. pars i. Nos. 143 and 149.
3 Histoire critique de rOiigine et de la Formation des Ordres gf'trs, p. 121.
FORMS.
I 2
the famous temple at Paphos as it was in the time of the Roman
supremacy (Fig. 58). Moreover, in speaking of the Syrian and
Phoenician temples, classic authors often mention the tall pillars
which rose in couples before the sanctuary. In the temple of
Melkart at Gades they were of bronze, eight cubits high, and
bore a long inscription.1 In the shrine of the same deity at Tyre
the admiration of Herodotus was stirred by the sight of two shafts,
one of pure gold, he says, the other of emerald, that is, of lapis-
lazuli or coloured glass.2 These shafts or steles probably stood in
similar places to those occupied, at Jerusalem, by Jachin and
Boaz, the two famous bronze columns which rose at the threshold of
FIG. 58. — Coin of Cyprus. Enlarged.
a building also erected by a Phoenician architect.4 Finally we must
recognize forms of the same nature in the two " very large phalluses"
erected on the threshold of the temple at Hierapolis, in Upper
Syria, where the goddess Atergatis was worshipped.5
These pillars were perhaps in the beginning emblematic in
1 STRABO, iii. v. 5.
2 HERODOTUS, ii. 44. The historian uses the word o-nyAat, which could hardly be
applied to pillars as high as those upon the coin of Paphos.
3 From DONALDSON'S Architectura Nnmismatica.
4 We shall have occasion to return to these columns when we come to speak of
Solomon's temple.
5 PsiiUDO-LuciAN, The Syrian Goddess, § 16; STRABO, xvi. i. 27.
124 HISTORY OF ART IN PIHKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
character. This \ve may gather from an expression used by the
author of the curious work i 'pon the Syrian Goddess. It is possible
that they were, in fact, symbols of the creative power as represented
by the male organ of generation. The fork at their summit may
have something to do with the double tongue of a flame blown
about by the wind, which may account for their name of Kkam-
))ia)iii)i, which often occurs in the Hebrew books of the Old
Testament, and has been referred to the root khani, which means
" to be warm, burning". *
Whatever the truth may be as to the origin of these things, it is
unlikely that any great stress was laid on the exact imitation
of forms which had nothing architectural about them. In
time the primitive sense of these piers was lost to sight, and their
shapes modified by the ornaments placed at the top of them.
The earliest Phoenician columns of any size of which the
memory has come down to our times were not supports but, like
the Egyptian obelisks, at once symbols and decorative elements.
At first we may feel some surprise that the Phoenicians, who were
the pupils of Egypt rather than Chaldrea, and had in abundance
the stone denied to the latter country, should have taken the
Mesopotamian architects as their models in this matter of the
column, rather than those of Memphis and Thebes. The true
explanation of this singularity is to be found perhaps in the
general poverty of Phoenician architecture. If Phoenicia did not
build hypostyle halls like those of Egypt, it was because she
never dreamt of undertaking any such gigantic works as those
on which the Pharaohs employed armies of their own subjects
and every prisoner they could take in war. Phoenicia was unable
to indulge in such luxuries. Her largest cities were villages
beside Memphis and Thebes and Sais ; her population even at
the time of her greatest prosperity was not more, perhaps, than a
million souls, including slaves ; it was hardly more than enough
to carry on her industries, and to man her vessels. To have
attempted anything that could be even remotely compared to the
1 The name of Hammon, the solar god, the god of lire, seems to come from the
same root To my mind some doubt is cast upon this explanation, however, by the
fact that in all the best specimens of the coinage in question, which I examined in
the Cabinet des Mcdailles, the round knobs at the ends of the two forks are never
absent. But whether a flame is quiet or blown by the wind it has nothing that can
be compared to these globes, which were, in all probability, o/' bronze gilt.
FORMS. 125
wonders of Luxor and Karnak would have been to squander
her vital forces. The Phoenicians were too economical, their
intellects were too practical, for such ambitions as these. The
only great works to which they turned with real good will seem
to have been such as were of public utility ; the embankments, for
instance, by which they increased the actual superficies of Tyre,
and made it better fitted for the storage of merchandise, for the
loading and discharging of ships.1 The same readiness was shown
when the question was one of dredging the harbours or closing
their entrances against an enemy, of providing a supply of water,
either for maritime Tyre or for the town on the mainland ; but, so
far as we can tell, temples and palaces remained comparatively
small ; they were distinguished rather by wealth of decoration
than by magnificence of plan. The apparent anomaly is to be
accounted for by the utilitarian character which distinguished
Phoenician civilization from the beginning to the end.
But although the Phoenician merchants refused to follow the
lead of the Egyptians in the matter of splendid architecture, none
the less do we constantly encounter proofs of the dominating
influence exercised by Egyptian art over that of Phoenicia. To
be convinced of this we need only glance at their details. The
tufa and shelly limestone of Syria was less well adapted to
receive and preserve the work of the chisel than the marble of
Greece ; it was even excelled by the fine limestone from the
Mokattam and the sandstone from Gebel-Silsilis of Egypt, while
the stucco under which the coarseness of its grain was mostly
disguised has now disappeared, at least from those monuments
which are really ancient. But in what little remains to us of the
works of Phoenician builders it is the taste of Egypt that is to be
recognized in the choice and arrangement of the ornamental
motives.
1 MENANDER, quoted by Josephus (Fragm. Hist. Grcec., Muller, vol. iv. p. 446,
fragm. i.). Another historian, DIGS, mentions the same works, and his testimony
has also been preserved for us by Josephus (Apion. i. 17).
126 HISTORY 01- ART IN I'IKIAICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
vj 5. I^ccoration.
So far as we can tell from the remains, the Phoenician
architect, like his brother of Egypt, had but one way of finishing
his buildings at the top. His entablatures were composed of
.<..», (,,!.„
FIG. 59. — Eg)-ptian Coffer. I.ouvre. Drawn by St. Elme-Gautiei.
an architrave and a cornice, the section of the latter almost always
the same as that Egyptian gorge which is to be found on every
ancient building from one end of the Nile valley to the other.
To recall its form to our readers, we here reproduce an Egyptian
coffer of painted wood, in which the general appearance of a stone
DECORATION.
127
building is copied in small (Fig. 59). Its cornice is practically
identical with that of the tabernacle at Amrit (Fig. 40) ; we find
the same sections in a stone beam surmounting a wall near Saida
(Fig. 60), which is certainly not the place for which it was
originally made.1
FIG. 60. — Phoenician cornice. From Renan.
In one of the tabernacles at Amrlt the cornice proper is
crowned by a row of ursei, each with a solar disk upon his head
(Fig. 61). This is the richest and amplest entablature to be
found upon a Phoenician building, and it is nothing but a varia-
tion upon an Egyptian motive.2 It must have been in frequent
FIG. 61. — Details of a cornice. From Renan.
use in Phoenicia. We find it again in a small object found at
Saida, on which is carved a small seated god (Fig. 62). The
figure has been almost destroyed by blows with a knife, but the
row of asps at the top of the stone may be easily recognized.
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 507, 508.
2 History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. ii. p. 152, Fig. 136.
128 HISTORV OF ART IN PIUKXICIA ANM> ITS DEPENDENCIES.
A cornice simpler in its decoration, but with a good section, is
that on the tomb at Amrit known as the Bordj-el-Bezzak (Fig. 6).
It is composed of a cyma-reversa surmounted by a deep fillet
(Fig. 63). \Ve may also cite as showing some interesting features,
the mouldings on a little building in which one of those tombs of
KlCi. 62. — Sculptured fragment.
From Kenan.
]•'!<;. 63. — Cornice on a tomb
From Kenan.
Adonis, which appear to have been so numerous in the district
about Byblos, has been recognized.1 The principal fragment was
found in place. It ornamented the foot of the external wall of the
cella, of which only the lower courses have survived (Fig. 64).
The torus and cavetto, which were found among the ddbris heaped
FIG. 64. — Moulding from
a plinth.
FIGS. 6$ and 66. — Mouldings from the base of a
pyramidioa. From Kenan.
about the celia, belonged, according to the architect by whom
they were studied, to the base of the pyramidion with which the
monument was crowned (Figs. 6$ and 66).
Again, on a piece of money struck at Byblos in the time of
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 285 288. In his plate xxxv. M. Thobois proposes what
seems to be a very plausible restoration of this monument.
DECORATION.
129
Heliogabalus, there is figured a building with a cornice of very
peculiar design (Fig. 67). Some of its elements are pure Greek,
but the cornice with its convex segmental section and its vertical
FIG. 67. — Coin of Byblos, enlarged. From Donaldson.
grooves has nothing classic about it. So far as we can judge from
the representation given by the engraver it is more like some of
the Assyrian entablatures than anything else.1
FIG. 68. — Elevation of the doorway at Oum-el-Aivatnid and section of the lintel. From Kenan.
The openings of doors were surrounded by flat architraves, that
which formed the lintel being adorned with the winged disk. The
best preserved example of the Phoenician doorway which has come
1 See A History of Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. Figs. 41 and 42.
VOL. I. S
130 HISTORY »>i ART IN PIIO-.NH IA AND ITS Dr.i'i-.NnKNc IKS.
down to us is that studied by MM. Kenan and Thobois at Oum-
cl-Ai<.aniid (Fig. 68). The two little people at the angles of the
architrave should be noticed. Their head-dress resembles the
Egyptian f>schcnt. The figure on the right holds a star-shaped
flower, supported on a tall stem ; it is more difficult to make out
what his companion on the left has in his hand.
In Phoenicia the winged globe is generally flanked by those two
long wings which always accompany it in Egypt, but here the
importance of the motive is sometimes diminished. In one of
the fragments found at Ouni-cl-Awaniid the wings are suggested
merely by a few feathers appearing from under the disk (Fig. 69).
In another variety of the type, from the same place, the ornament
is complicated by the introduction of a crescent and subordinate
disk (Fig. 70). By this the meaning of the group is rendered
Fit;. 60. — Winged glol>e.
From Renan.
IMC.. 70.-— Winged globe with
crescent. From Renan.
even more obvious than it is in the Egyptian form ; the least
educated eye is able to see that it forms a symbol and relic of that
star worship to which the Assyrians made, continual allusion when
they placed the sun, moon, and stars on their steles and cylinders.1
The peculiarly Phoenician element in this group is the combina-
tion of a disk and a crescent. Does the disk stand for the sun or
a star ? or, does the combination refer to the two states of the
moon, new and at the full ? It is difficult to say ; but whatever the
real explanation may be this particular form of the winged globe
is to be met with in a great many of those votive steles erected
at Carthage in honour of Tanit, of which we have already given
more than one example (Fig. 71). It is peculiar to Phoenicia ; we
find it on all kinds of objects issued from the workshops of Tyre
and Carthage ; it becomes, in fact, a kind of trade mark by which
1 History of Art in ChaLltra and Assyria, Vol. I. pp. 70-75.
DECORATION. 131
we can recognize as Phoenician all such objects as bear it, whether
they come from Etruria or Sardinia, from Africa or Syria.1
Take for instance a little marble column in the Louvre (Fig.
72) ; even if we did not know that it was brought from Tyre in
1852 byde Saulcy, we should not hesitate to declare its Phoenician
origin. Its summit is crowned by an ornament made up of four
petalled flowers, divided in the centre by a bud like that of the
lotus. All this is Egyptian, but beneath the winged globe which
appears rather lower down the shaft we encounter the disk and
FIG. 71. — Sidereal symbols from a Carthaginian stele.
French National Library.
FIG. 7-- — Marble column. l.ou\re.
Height 26 inches.
crescent, and all doubt as to the provenance of the monument is al
once removed. We may say, in fact, that it is signed,
A conventional form whose Egyptian origin is no less certain is
that of the sphinx. The Phoenician decorators seem to have
made frequent use of it ; in almost every case they gave it wings.
The Phoenician sphinxes, like those of Egypt, were often sculptured
in the round and placed at the entrance to buildings. An instance
of this is to be seen at Oum-el-Awamid, among the ruins of what
1 These groups of globe and crescent are found in the cemeteries of Sardinia in
great numbers. See Bollettino Archeologico Sardo, vol. ii. p. 56 ; and vol. iii.
pp. 105-107.
1 32 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
was once in all probability a temple.1 The arms of a throne
whose fragments were found on the same spot seem also to have
been formed of sphinxes.2 Elsewhere we find the same creatures
chiselled in bas-relief. An alabaster slab from Arvad, on which
^^J^^^^^^J^,
fc»M«^
Fie.. 73. — Alaba.-ter slab. Louvre. Height 24^ inches.
the carving is very minutely carried out, is an example of this
(Fig- 73)- The sphinx is there couchant on a pedestal similar to
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 701-702, and plates xxxii. i. ; li. k. ; and Ivii. i.
5 M. THOBOIS gives a restoration of this throne (Mission, pi. liii.). We do not
reproduce it here because it is, by his own confession, very conjectural, and because
the sphinxes of his version are very conventional in form, recalling works of the
time of Hadrian rather than the sculptured imitations from the Saite epoch of which
M. Renan speaks.
DECORATION.
those which lined the avenues of the Pharaonic temples ; l it has
the uraeus on its brow, and the double crown, or pschent. Judging
from these features it must have been copied from those Egyptian
monsters whose heads were portraits of the kings by whose orders
they were raised.2
But although the pose and head-dress speak of Egypt, the
wings of this sphinx, both by their shape and presence, recall
the winged monsters of Assyria. Winged sphinxes were very
rare in the Nile valley,3 but whenever the great composite animal
of Egypt was imitated in Assyria it was endowed with wings,4 and
in every example to which we can point they were rather short
and turned upwards at the end. This motive occurs on a large
number of objects which we have every reason to ascribe to
FIG. 74. — Egyptian winged sphinx. From Prisse.
Mesopotamia, on a stone plaque carved with a very fantastic
monster 5 on a fine cylinder,6 upon a cone inscribed with Aramaean
characters.7 In all these the wings are more or less decidedly
curled back on themselves. The Phoenician artists seem to
1 History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I. Fig. 205.
2 See Kenan's observations upon this slab and upon another of the same class
(Fig. 76) ; Mission, pp. 23-25. The lithographic reproductions given in his plate iv.
are so wanting in clearness that we have been compelled to have these objects
re-drawn from the originals, which are now, happily, in the Louvre.
3 WILKINSON, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii.
P- 3i°-
4 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 83 ; Vol. II. Figs. 58 and 59.
5 Ibid. Vol. II. Fig. 87.
6 Ibid. Fig. 141. 7 Ibid. Fig. 157.
134 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKPKXIM-LNCIKS.
have universally adopted the same form ; it is to be found both
on their metal platters and on their engraved stones (Fig. 75).
Like the group of crescent and globe it may be looked upon as a
!• IG. 75. — -Phoenician *caral>;voui. (iix-y lapis. Twice the si/c of the original. From the
Danicourt Collection.
trade mark whereby to distinguish .between a scarab made in
Phoenicia and one of true Egyptian origin.
We again find these upturned wings on another slab belonging
to the same architectural whole as that reproduced in Fig. 73.
.'-XirXi ,.±S. \k.^.,__-jr_N-. ^••ff'1 ^J ,
F'IG. 76. — Alahastei • slah. Louvix-.1
Here we see two creatures fronting each other (Fig. 76) ; from
the feathers on their heads they seem to be meant for griffins.
It will be remembered that the taste for figures put face to face
1 Height 20 inches. Drawn by Bourgoin.
DECORATION.
'35
is Assyrian rather than Egyptian ; l the Egyptian decorator
loved to place his figures back to back ; - the converse arrange-
ment, as we may see by turning over the pages of any work
on Mesopotamia!! art, was preferred by the Assyrian.3 He was
continually using pairs of human figures and of real or fictitious
animals, and he always made them face each other, but with a
barrier between in the shape of a vase, an altar, a column, a
rosette, or a palmette.4
This palmette is also to be commonly met with in Phoenicia, but,
true to its character as a borrowed motive, it is there even more
conventional in form than in Assyria. Its stem is a kind of archi-
tectonic column, with rudimentary volutes ; its four or five leaves
Vie,. 77. — Alabaster slab. Louvre.
are very symmetrical, even rigid ; and on the whole it is much
farther removed from the vegetable world than its Mesopotamian
original.
Another favourite motive of the Assyrian ornamentist may be
recognized in the cable which here divides the field of the lower
relief from the compartment above.5
1 Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, Vol. II. page 338.
2 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. II. Figs. 288, 311, 314, 327, 328.
3 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. Figs. 8, 124, 138, 139 ; Vol. II. Figs. 120,
123, 141, 152, 153, 158, 209, &c.
4 Ibid. Vol. I. Figs. 8, 81, 137, 138, 139 ; Vol. II. 253, 254, 255.
5 Ibid. Vol. I. Figs. 126 and 137 ; Vol. II. plate xiii.
136 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Finally, the Mesopotamia!) origin of the stepped ornament
(Fig. 77) is no less certain. \Ve have seen that it was employed
at Nineveh as a border for enamelled bricks and frescoes ; l we have
also met with it about the summit of an altar.2 In Phoenicia it was
used in the same way, to vary the aspect of a wide surface of stone
and to give it a fitting crown.3 Two slabs of alabaster now in the
Louvre, but once in all probability part of the great temple at
Byblos, are thus adorned (Fig. 77). This feature came into such
universal use that we find it persisting even to the Roman period
FIG. 78. — Altar with stepped ornament. From Renan.
on such things as the altar inscribed with the name of the goddess
Nesepteitis, which we reproduce (Fig. 78). 4 The rosette, too,
which appears beneath these steps is of Assyrian origin. We give
it on a larger scale in Fig. 79, so that the elegance of its lines may
be better seen.
1 Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 118 ; Vol. II. plate xiv.
2 Ibid. vol. i. fig. 107.
3 RENAN, Mission, pp. 72, 162-164, I75> &c., and plates xi., xii., xiii., xx. and xxii.
4 Ibid. p. 201, and plate xxii. No. n.
DECORATION. 137
We are again reminded of a motive we have met in Assyria by
the balustrade-like ornament which occurs on some stone troughs
found at Oum-el-Awamid (Fig. So).1 They are very like the little
columns on one of the finest of the Ninevite ivories.2 We find
the same contrasts in both, between the expansive width of the
Fu;. 79. — Rosettes enlarged. Louvre.
flower-like capitals and the neck which seems strangled by the
cords which make several turns about the shaft. The same forms
occur on a fragmentary relief found in the neighbourhood of Tyre,
not far from Adloun, and now in the Louvre (Fig. 8i).3 On this
little slab we can distinguish the left hand and knees of an
o
enthroned personage, who grasps an object which we can hardly
Fir,. So.— Stone trough. From Kenan.
define. Before him rises a kind of standard with a censer at the
top, which must have been of bronze. In its construction it
1 Ibid. p. 708.
2 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 129.
''' REX AN, Mission, p. 654.
VOL I. T
138 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKFNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
reminds us of Assyrian furniture.1 The pschcn /-covered head
in the lower left-hand corner forms part of the throne. It is
Fie;. 8l.— Fragment of relief. Height 6J inches.
quite Egyptian in character. On the other hand the frame of the
picture is formed of the Assyrian palmette. Some candelabra of
the same kind have been recognized on the votive steles of
FIGS. 82 and 83. — Candelabra figured on a stele. French National Library.
Carthage (Figs. 82 and 83). - In one of the two the flame at the
summit is very clearly indicated.
1 Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, Vol. II. Pigs. 193, 195, 196, 200.
-' BKRGKR, Les Ex-voto du Temple de Tanif () Cartilage, p. 29.
DECORATION.
Finally we may cite a last monument which has unhappily
suffered even more than the one we have just described. It comes
from the same district. In the only feature of the decoration that
is now recognizable, we see a stem supporting a head of falling
leaves, which, again, is surmounted by a globular fruit (Fig. 84). ]
But the condition of the stone is such that we can form no
probable conjecture as to its purpose.
We have tried to make this catalogue of the elements of
Phoenician decoration complete, but nevertheless we should have
a very imperfect conception of it if we forgot to take account of
the part played by metal sheathings and by paint. The calcareous
tufa of the country was not susceptible of any very delicate orna-
ment, and it was quite by exception that granite, alabaster, or
FIG. 84. — Fragment of a sculptured slab. From Kenan.
marble, brought from Egypt or the Greek islands, was used to
case buildings constructed of inferior material. As a rule they
were content with commoner stone, in spite of the unkindly way
in which it lent itself to the work of the chisel — and they could
always disguise its poverty under a casing of wood or metal.
This casing has everywhere disappeared, but in the curled volutes
and leafy decorations of the Cypriot capitals, we seem to recognize
motives suggested to the ornamentist by the elasticity of bronze
and by its behaviour under the hammer. In the temple at
Jerusalem, which was built and decorated by Phoenician artists.
the naked walls were nowhere left visible, at least in the interior.
1 REXAN, Mission, p. 658.
\.[O HISTORY OK AUT IN PihKNKiA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
The stone was overlaid with panelling of cedar, with brass, silver,
and gold.1
In this work of decoration colour could help, and sometimes, at
least, it would give as good a result as a more costly lining.
The few fragments we possess from buildings anterior to the
Greek conquest have been so hardly treated by man and the
weather, that no trace of stucco is now to be found upon them, but
the remains of paintings have been encountered upon the walls of
rock-cut tombs ; - steles, too, have been found on which the orna-
ments, the inscription, and even the portrait of the deceased are
carried out in paint.3 The Phoenician workman must have
made good use of the palette and cups we find so often in
Egyptian tombs (Fig. 85). The frescoes in the tombs and on the
steles belong, it is true, to the Roman period, but while we explain
their preservation to our own day by the shorter space of time
I-'ic.. S5. — Kgyptian palette. Louvre.
through which they have existed, we have no reason to suppose
that such an obvious device for covering the porous stone walls of
a hypogeum had not been used long before. In the two countries
with which their intercourse was most intimate and continuous, in
Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Phoenicians saw decoration in colour
applied to vast surfaces with much taste and art. On those
anthropoid sarcophagi which have been found wherever the
Phoenicians established themselves, vestiges of paint still exist,
some of which were very brilliant at the moment of discovery.
The work of the brush is also conspicuous on one of the sepulchral
1 I Kings vi. 15, 16, and iS: "And the cedar of the house within was carved
with knops and open flowers; all was cedar; there was no stone seen."
2 REMAN, Mission, pp. 209, 380, 395,408, 510.
3 RLNAN, Mission, pi. xliii., and Ci.KRMOXT-dANNKAr, Steles peintes de Sidon
( Gazette archeologique, 1877, p. 102, and plates 15, 16). The steles described by
M. Clermont-Ganneau are now in the Louvre, in the Salic des J\intnres antii/ues.
DECORATION. 141
steles brought from Cyprus by Cesnola. It once had a band of
colour all round it, and this can still be traced across the bottom
of the monument.
Thanks to the judicious employment of all these subordinate
means of adornment, the buildings of Phoenicia, while far inferior
in their dimensions to those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, must
have had a certain decorative beauty of their own. Herodotus
speaks with admiration of the great sanctuary of Tyre, but if he
had been an archaeologist he would have been chiefly struck with
the fact that all the elements of the decoration he saw about him
were already known to him. Neither there nor in any of the
buildings to which his Phoenician hosts took him in Syria could
he have encountered a form or motive that did not recall some-
thing already seen at Memphis and Babylon.
CHAPTER III.
SEPULCHRAL ARCHITECTURE.
£ i. — 77/6' Ideas of the Phoenicians as to a Future Life.
THE Phoenicians have left us no literature in which to learn
their ideas and sentiments upon death and its consequences, and
there is nothing in the inscriptions on their tombs to fill up the
void. Of these we possess a certain number, but, on the one
hand, they are not very old, on the other, they are singularly short
and dry. They give us the names and titles of the deceased, but
not a hint of his beliefs and hopes.
To this there is but one exception, in the text engraved on the
sarcophagus of Esmounazar, king of Sidon (Fig. 86). l This text
runs to twenty-two long lines, and yet it tells us hardly anything
of what we most want to know. It proves that the defunct had a
very lively dread of violation for his tomb. It begins by declaring
to all possible tomb-breakers and robbers that they will find
nothing to reward their trouble. " Do not open this coffin for the
sake of treasure ; there are no treasures in it ! " This is all very
well, but the tomb-breaker may answer as he applies his crowbar,
" Never mind ; we will just see whether you speak the truth."
Esmounazar foresees this peril, and he employs another means
to stop those \vho may refuse to take him at his word. He in-
vokes the aid of Astarte and other gods and goddesses against all
who may disturb his rest, and prays that the latter may die child-
less, and may in their last sleep be denied that repose which they
had refused to him. This solemn imprecation is repeated twice
over, in almost identical terms, as if the author of the prayer
thought by such means to give it a more certain efficacy.
1 Corpus Inscriplionum Semilicarnm, part i. No. 3.
THE IDEAS OF THE PHOENICIANS AS TO A FUTURE LIFE. 143
This horror of all interference with the tomb or disturbance of
its inmate proves that the Phoenicians did not believe that all was
FIG. 86. — Sarcophagus of Esmounazar, Louvre.1
over when the breath left the body. Like the Egyptians and
Chaldaeans, they thought the dead man was sleeping in his
1 Length, 8 feet 5 inches ; greatest width, 4 feet 3 inches.
144 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
sepulchre, that in it he continued to live that imperfect and pre-
carious life which we attempted to describe in the case of Egypt.
One is, therefore, surprised to find no reference, direct or indirect,
to any provision of funerary offerings such as those for which
every Egyptian, were he never so humble, prayed perpetually in
the words engraved on his stele.1 No Phoenician tombs have
been discovered in such a state that the silence of their inscrip-
tions could be made up for by an inventory of their contents.
Cords and bandages have sometimes left traces upon sarcophagi
and tomb chambers, whence it has been concluded that certain
practices in which the Egyptians excelled had their followers in
Phoenicia.2 Embalmed with more or less care and tied up in linen
bandages, Phoenician corpses when ready for burial must have had
much the look of mummies, but of mummies prepared with less
scrupulous care and refinement than those of Egypt. When the
corpse was placed in its human-headed sarcophagus, the opening
of the ear was sometimes carried through the whole thickness of
that stone envelope, as if to leave a free passage for the prayers of
the living to the ears of the dead.8 The sepulchral furniture
differs little from what we found in Egypt and in Chalda^a. It
comprises amulets, statuettes of tutelary divinities, and objects for
the use of the dead.
But so far as we can discover, no eatables, either real or figured,
have yet been found in Phoenician tombs ; perhaps, however, this
apparent difference between the practice of Syria and that of Egypt
and Chaldaea is to be accounted for by the fact that in the first
mentioned country no sepulchre has been found so intact as many
of those in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. Tombs
were less carefully hidden in Phoenicia, and cemeteries were far
less extensive. As a result of this we find that even in antiquity
many sepulchres were used at second hand by those who had no
right to them. These usurpations must have led to the dispersal
of the original furnishing of any tomb in which they took place.
1 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I. pp. 140-145.
2 DE LONGPERIKR, At u see Napoleon ///., notice of plate xvii. RKNAN, Mission,
pp. 78 and 421. It would seem that the Jews sometimes embalmed corpses, in
imitation of the Phoenicians. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us that this was done in
the case of King Asa (2 Chronicles xvi. 14).
3 DE LONGPERIER, Afusee Napoleon III., observations on plate xvii. An instance
of this practice may be seen in a woman's sarcophagus which has been brought
from the necropolis of Arvad to the Louvre.
THE IDEAS OF THE PHOENICIANS AS TO A FUTURE LIFE. 145
In later years, too, seekers for treasure came to disturb the
cemeteries in every direction. A virgin tomb is very rarely
encountered on the Syrian coast. On the few occasions \vhen
such a burial-place has come under the eye of the explorer it has
as a rule contained nothing but objects of the Grseco- Roman
period ; it may have been originally made much earlier, but in
the course of centuries its occupant had been changed. Under
such conditions can we be surprised that the tomb preserved no
traces of a rite which carries us back, by the beliefs it implies, to
the very childhood of humanity ?
There are, however, some indications which lead us to believe
that Syria practised that worship of the dead which is based
entirely upon the notion that in their subterranean homes the
latter live a real life, a life sustained by the meat and drink
furnished in perpetuity by pious survivors. Consult Deuteronomy,
that collection of religious prescriptions which seems to have been
.published at Jerusalem under the last kings of Judah, when those
monotheistic tendencies of the Jews which finally triumphed in
the days of exile and captivity first began to show their strength.1
In those days prophets and priests were struggling passionately
against the gods who had disputed the hearts of the people with
Jehovah for so many centuries. They were proscribing the Syrian
worship and doing their best to bring its rites into disrepute, and
nothing found less favour in their sight than this worship of the
dead. Of this we have an indirect but certain proof in the form
of confession imposed upon the worshipper of Jehovah when he
brought his gifts to the altar.
" I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken
away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof
for the dead." 2
The practice of giving food to the dead certainly implies a
belief that the latter can make use of it, and that they are capable
of rendering services to all who gain their favour. Among the
Jews and among those peoples from whom they only separated
1 According to M. E. REUSS, Deuteronomy is the code promulgated under Josiah
in 623 (La Bible, V Histoire Sainte et la Loi, vol i., Introduction, p. 160).
2 Deuteronomy xxvi. 14. M. HALEVY calls attention to this text in a remarkable
study entitled De I'Ame chez les Peuple semitiques, in the Rente Archeologique
(1882, vol. xliv. p. 44). In the sequel we shall have frequent occasion to borrow
from M. Hale'vy's paper, making use sometimes of his own words, but more otten
abridging them so as to keep within the space at our command.
VOL. I. U
146 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNH IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
themselves at a very late date, the notion \vas therefore general
that death did not put an end to existence, and that a dead man
continued to interest himself in the affairs of the world. They
ascribed to him even higher powers than these ; they believed he
could see into the future, ami that he could explain the most
difficult secrets. Of this we have evidence in the often-repeated
proscription of necromancy in the Mosaic law ; the insistence
with which they are forbidden proves the high favour of such
divinations among the Hebrews.1
But in all this we are not left to mere conjecture ; the account
of the visit of Saul to the witch of Endor is direct proof of what
we have said. The king wished to learn what would be the issue
of the battle of Mount Gilboa, and as the best way to the desired
result he made the witch raise the shade of Samuel, who, after
complaining of being brought up again to earth, told the king that
he and his sons should be with him on the morrow.2
The words of this account seem to hint that the writer of these
passages believed the dead to be assembled in a single place, the
s/ieo/of the Hebrews. This idea explains the phrase which occurs
so often in the Bible "He was gathered to his own people," or
" to his fathers." Looking at it merely as an allusion to the grave
o j O
its meaning is obscure, but it must rather be considered as referring
to a posthumous life passed in a subterranean abode like that of
the Greek Hades ; and here we may quote those words in Job's
complaint of life in which he describes the dwelling of the
dead.3
" For now should I have lain still, and been quiet, I should
have slept, then had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of
the earth, which built desolate places for themselves ; or with
princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver; Or
as an hidden untimely birth I had not been ; as infants which
never saw the light. There the wicked cease from troubling ;
and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together ;
1 Among those people that were " an abomination unto the Lord " figure "a
charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer''
(Deuteronomy xviii. n ; see also Leviticus xix. 31, and xx. 6, 27). In a chapter of
Samuel, to be quoted presently, we are told that Saul had put away diviners and
necromancers out of the land (this is the translation given by M. Reuss \dcrins tt
necromanciers~\ of the Hebrew text, i Samuel xxviii. 3).
- i Si mn el xxviii.
;! foB iii. 13-19.
THE IDEAS OF THE PHOENICIANS AS TO A FUTURE LIKE. 147
they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great
are there; and the servant is free from his master."
It will be seen how closely this description resembles that of
the Assyrian under-world as given in the Descent of Istar.1
Analogies of the same kind abound in other expressions applied
toskeolm the Hebrew writings. It is painted as a place where
men " make their beds in the darkness ; " the way thither is
spoken of as a " way whence I shall not return." : Shcol had its
barriers/ like the hell of Istar. When a great conqueror passed
through them, the shades (re/aim] of the kings rose from their
couches to see whether it was really he who had made the earth
tremble, and when they had recognized him they amused them-
selves by mocking at him.0
The data we have here brought together are sprinkled over the
works of historians, poets, and other writers, who, in their mono-
theistic ardour were, one and all, bitterly hostile to the beliefs on
which the worship of the dead was founded, and looked upon its
rites as mortal sins. It was, then, only on rare occasions that
they referred to sheol and its inhabitants, while their tendency
was always to transform into a mere poetical image that which the
people took in its literal sense. And yet even these fugitive
allusions, I may even say these reticences, allow us to catch a
glimpse of those popular conceptions which had in the end to give
way before monotheism. In fact, the true national beliefs of
Israel were not those set forth by the Hebrew prophets.6 The
more strongly an idea or custom was reprobated by the Hebrew
legislators, the more deeply, we may take it, had its roots sunk into
the imagination of the Jewish race.
The Jewish nation was distinguished from those by which it
was surrounded in Syria by its gradual abandonment of polytheism
for the worship of a single God. The lofty beliefs which it ended
by embracing were its own peculiar glory, but it was not so with
the notions they expelled. Homage rendered to the sun, to the
moon and the rest of the celestial army, sacrifices offered in the
sacred groves of the Baals and their corresponding goddesses,
invocations of the dead and offerings of food on their tombs, all
these are forbidden in the Bible, where they are spoken of as
1 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, Vol. I. pp. 345-347-
2 JOBjcvii. 13. 3 Ibid. xvi. 22. 4 Ibid. xvii.
5 ISAIAH xiv. 9-15. Cf. EZEKIEL xxxii. c J. HALEVY, he. cit. p. 50.
1 48 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
abominations borrowed by the Jews from their neighbours on the
East, West, and North. The constant endeavour of the Hebrew
prophets was to compel their countrymen to leave off thinking,
feeling, or acting like the Canaanitish tribes among whom they
found themselves placed ; it is obvious, therefore, that from the
rites and beliefs they forbade, we may form some idea of the
common characteristics of the Syrian religions ; we may sup-
plement the meagre evidence of Phoenician inscriptions by the
testimony of the Hebrew writers. Of all the western Semites
the Jews alone had a literature, or, to speak more correctly, the
Jewish literature alone has come down to our own time. Thanks
to its extent and variety, this work has the merit of telling
us a great deal more than the history of the Jewish mind ; it
makes us familiar with many of the thoughts and customs of
other nations belonging to the same family. By the latter, few
monuments have been sent down to posterity in which we can
recognise the real tones of their voice and the sense of their words.
«>
But happily we have the Bible — the Bible of the Jews — from which
we may gather so much authentic information upon a world from
which they only emerged under their later kings and after they
had returned from the captivity.
It is, then, from the sacred writings that we shall draw the most
valuable testimony as to the ideas of the men of Tyre and Siclon
on death and the life after death — ideas which must be understood
before we can explain the usual methods of sepulture and the
common forms of funerary architecture among these people.
The ideas in question do not differ greatly from those we have
already encountered in Egypt and Chaldaea. Like the Egyptians,
the Phoenicians called the tomb the eternal dwelling,1 and the
most important documents they have left us are the cemeteries
of Marath and Sidon.
1 This expression is to be found in a sepulchral inscription at Malta (Corpus
Inscriptionum Semiticaruni, pars i. No. 124).
THE PIKENICIAN TUMI;. 149
§ 2. — The Phoenician Tomb.
In Palestine and Phoenicia, in a country where the soil but
slightly covers rock which can be readily cut with the most
inferior tool, the cave must have been the first sepulchre. This is
confirmed by Genesis. We there find that to the oldest in-
habitants of Palestine a sepulchre meant a cave large enough to
accommodate all the members of a single family. When Abraham
lost his wife Sarah, he acquired from Ephron the Hittite, at the
price of four hundred silver shekels, the cave of Macpelah, with
the field which surrounded it, and all the trees in the field.
There the bodies of Sarah, of the patriarch himself, of Isaac and
of Jacob, were deposited. l At first natural caverns were used,
and used in their natural state. Then art was called in to enlarge
them and to make them more convenient for their purpose. The
use of these caves was so thoroughly rooted in the national
habits that it persisted long after men had learnt to dress and
fix stone. Nearly all the Phoenician tombs are hypogea. It
is quite by exception that we find a few sepulchres of a different
kind, such, for example, as one of the most curious monuments
at Amrit, the Burdj-el-Bezzak (Fig. 6). The chambers it contains,
which are obviously sepulchral in character, are certainly built
above the ground, but in reality it is nothing more than a trans-
position. The rooms are, so to speak, artificial grottoes reserved
in the mass of masonry, as if the building had been modelled
literally upon a natural cave (Fig. 87). 2
Thanks to the thickness of its walls, a cavern like this kept
excellent guard over its contents when once the opening had been
closed by a huge stone. But men were not satisfied with having
their own bodies, or those of their relations, put beyond reach
of disturbance, they also wished to put something — a ar^a as the
Greeks called it — upon the tomb to keep green the memory of its
occupants.3 As soon as writing was invented an inscription was
1 Genesis xxiii. xxv. xliv.
2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 81 and 86.
3 Our readers will remember the expression of Homer. «T7//xa ^even' = to spread a
signal, that is, to heap up earth in such a way that the site of a sepulchre should be
clearly proclaimed.
150 HISTORY 01 ART IN PH<I:\ICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the sign ; meanwhile, a mound, the trunk of a tree, an upright stone
as high and heavy as possible, served the purpose. In Genesis
•we find these words : " And Rachel died and was buried in the
way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar
upon her grave : that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day."
Thus when Jacob wished to do honour to his favourite wife he was
obliged to be content with raising a mass of rock on her tomb. As
civilisation gradually spread over Syria from the powerful nations
in her vicinity, this part of the tomb, far from disappearing, must
have become of much greater importance. More exposed to
destruction than the subterranean chamber, it has left> but feeble
Kiu. 87. --Section of the Bunlj-el-Htvzak. From Kenan.
traces, but still we have grounds for believing in its almost
universal existence.
Whether the tomb chamber was excavated, as it was in most
cases, in the depths of the soil, or whether it occupied the interior
of a block of masonry, a sort of artificial rock, it was as a rule
accompanied by an external and salient feature of some kind.-'
It has been suggested that this salience had an emblematic
significance of a nature which to us may appear gross, but which,
nevertheless, was admitted and held sacred by every antique
religion as a symbol of living nature and its inexhaustible fertility.'*
1 Genesis xxxv. 19. 20. The Greek text has o-n'jXrjr im-rjac.
8 RENAX, Mission, p. 75.
3 GERHARD. Ufber die Kitnst der Phfcnizier. p. 4 and note 18 (in the Gesammelte
dkademischc Abhandlungen, No. xi.).
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB.
There is one particular form of cippus which may be quoted in
support of this idea, as it does, no doubt, bear a certain resemblance
to a phallus ; but, on the other hand, some tombs are surmounted
by a pyramid (see Fig. 6), a motive which can hardly have had
the significance imputed to the cone. On the whole, perhaps, it
would be better to put aside all such explanations of these
forms and to look upon them as dictated purely by architectonic
notions.1
The only complete tombs yet found in Phoenicia are those
which stand in that plain of Amrit, in which the Arvadites
buried their dead. Our plan of a portion of that necropolis will
show how the tombs were arranged in relation to each other (Fig.
88) ; but the largest and best preserved sepulchres, those to which
FlG. 88. — Part of the Cemetery of Amrit. From Rennn.
our attention will be devoted in the first place, are situated outside
this map.2 Taking it as a whole, we find in this necropolis the
characteristics of the sincerest and the most remote antiquity. In
every way, therefore, it deserves to be studied first.
The tomb chambers at Amrit are higher, more spacious, and
better cut than any others in Phoenicia. They are reached some-
times by a vertical well, as in Egypt, sometimes by a staircase.
According to the explorers, the older tombs have a well ; in a few
it seems to have been replaced at a later period by steps,3 but
1 .M. Renan will have nothing to say to Herr Gerhard's theory, which, he says, is
suggested by the want of accuracy in the drawings upon which it was based.
2 See the general map of Amrit in plate vii. of Kenan's atlas.
3 RENAN, Mission, p. 76.
152 HlSloRV O! AUT IN PllU.Mt 1A AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
wherever it still exists, its walls are notched at regular intervals
to facilitate ascent and descent. One of these wells widens out
at the bottom, giving it a kind of bottle shape.1 Of this tomb
rt'i
• I.I
1- ic,. 89. — TmnI) at Ainrit. Perspective of interior. From Kenan.
we give a view in perspective of the interior (Fig. 89), a plan
(Fig. 90) and a section (Fig. 91).
- y
o
FIGS. 90 and 91. — Tomb at Amrit. Plan and section. From Renan.
At the bottom of the well, low doorways give access to chambers
varying in number according to the importance of the sepulchre.
These chambers communicate one with another by doorways and
flights of steps, so that those farthest from the entrance are buried
1 RKNAN, Mission^ pp. "8,79.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB.
most deeply beneath the surface. There are sometimes t\vo
storeys connected by a shaft sunk from one to the other (see Figs.
92, 93)-1
In many of the chambers the roof is flat, in others it is slightly
arched ; sometimes its section consists of two slight curves
meeting in the centre at a very obtuse angle.2 Every chamber
in which no trace of Grseco-Roman ornament is to be seen is
rectangular and with one axis much longer than the other.
No rule is followed in the number or arrangement of the rooms ;
FIGS. 92 and 93. — Plan and section of a tomb at Amrii From Kenan.
it is easily to be seen that in many cases room was added to
room as death followed death in the family to which the tomb
belonged.
That these tombs were family burial-places is proved by the
fact that they were all made for the reception of many occupants.
The bodies were placed in niches hollowed out of the rocky walls ;
the dimensions of the niches, which varied very slightly, being
determined by the average stature of the human body. The
corpses were wrapped in shrouds ; but sometimes, it appears, they
were placed in wooden coffins. In the centre of the farthest
wall of the principal chamber, a niche higher and wider than
1 REN AN, Mission, p. 75.
~ Ibid. p. 76.
VOL. I.
X
154 HISTORY OF ART IN FIICENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the rest seems to indicate the place reserved for the head of
the family.1
The mode of entombment here described was the most usual,
but a few dish-shaped coffins of calcareous alabaster and terra-
cotta have been found. They are very low and simple ; they
have hump-backed lids with a ridge along the middle, but with no
ornament. These sarcophagi are not found in niches, but in plain
chambers cut expressly for their reception. Round them on the
floor a groove is cut to carry away any moisture, and thus to
give the coffin a better chance of duration. The body, too, was
sometimes protected against damp by being imbedded in a thick
and strong envelope of plaster.2
As soon as it was occupied the niche was closed up with a stone
slab, and when all the niches were full the door of the tomb was
fortified in the same fashion. Large stones were sealed down
over the mouth of the well or on the first step of the staircase.3
The outward appearance of tombs, especially of those of the
rich, was in harmony with the elaboration of the interior ; it, too,
bears its testimony to the respect that was felt for the dead. The
best instances of this are afforded by those monuments which
the people of the country call El awamid-el- Meghazil, ''spindle-
shafts," or more briefly El-Meghazil, " spindles." Placed one
beside the other on the apex of a mass of rocks, two of these
monuments dominate all the surrounding country (Fig. 94). A short
way off there is another almost equally well-preserved monument
of the same class, and near that again the remains of a fourth.
" One of these monuments," says M. Renan, is " a masterpiece of
proportion, elegance, and majesty," 4 an opinion confirmed by the
restoration given by M. Thobois (Fig. 95). The total height of
the building is thirty-two feet. It stands upon a circular plinth,
flanked by four lions, whose heads and fore-quarters alone stand out
beyond its face. Above this plinth rises a cylinder crowned by a hemi-
sphere. The whole — except the plinth, which consists of four blocks
—being cut from a single huge stone. The double cylinder is
decorated round the summit of each of its parts with a row of
carved crenellations standing out about four inches from the general
surface. We have already referred to the Assyrian origin of this
motive. The dressing of the stone and the execution of these
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 76. " Ibid. p. 78.
:i Ibid. pp. 77, /8. 4 Ibid. p. 72.
FIG. 94.— The Meghazils of Amrit. Actual state. Frcm Renan.
THE PIKK.NICIAN TOMT.. 157
mouldings is very careful ; on the other hand, the four lions seem to
have been left unfinished ; their hasty execution is in strong con-
trast with the careful workmanship of the architecture. Perhaps,
however, their comparative roughness may have been intended to
add to their effect when seen from a distance. The tomb chamber
^7%^ZZ^ rN >»*""'"'• -^
wQggz^fe--
FIG. 9$ — Tomb at Ami-it. Restoration in perspective. l-'r.>m Rennn.
beneath is reached by a flight of fifteen steps. We give a plan
and section of it in Figs. 96 and 97. l
The design of the monument which stands at a distance of about
twenty feet from that just described is less happy (Fig. 93). 2 It is
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 71-73, and plates xi., xii., xiii.
- Ibid. p. 73, and plates xi. and xii.
158 HISTORY OK ART i\ PIKKMCIA AND ITS DKPKNDKNCIKS.
composed, iirst, ot ;i cubical block with a salient band at top and
bottom ; secondly, of a monolithic cylinder about thirteen feet high
and twelve feet in diameter ; thirdly, of a five-faced pyramidion.
The base is rough, the stone apparently left as it came from the
quarry, and the work as a whole looks unfinished.
The faces of the plinth of the second monument are parallel to
those of the first. The chambers they cover also lie in one
direction. It would seem, therefore, that the two monuments were
made at the same time, and that one is a pendant to the other.
They rise high above a large inclosure hollowed out of the rock
about fifty feet to the south. The ruins of various buildings are
KlGS. 96 and 97. — Plan ami section of tomb al Ainrit. From Renan.
sprinkled about this inclosure, among them, those of a thick wall
built of large stones, traces of which are also to be found westwards
at the foot of the rock upon which stand the two tombs. To the
north-west of these same tombs, there are some rock-cut chambers.
The whole may perhaps have formed the burial-place of some
important section of the population.
The third of the better-preserved monuments is much simpler
than the other two.1 Its chief feature is a monolith resting upon
a double-stepped base ; it terminates in a moulding composed of
a cyma recta and a fillet, above this rises a block squared
1 Ibid. p. 74 and plate 17.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB.
159
below and shaped like a truncated pyramid above. At present
the whole erection is about thirteen feet hiofh. It is more than
FIG. 98. — Tomb at Amrit restored. From Renan.
probable that the pyramid was originally complete, as we see it
in the restoration of M. Thobois (Fig. 98). The peculiarity of
this tomb lies in the fact that the entrance to the staircase is
FlG. 99. — Longitudinal section of tomb at Amrit. From Renan.
covered by a ridge roof, cut from a single block and supported
laterally by a course of huge stones (Fig. 99).
160 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKMCIA AND ITS DK.I'KNDKNXTKS.
Of the fourth monument nothing remains but two blocks
which seem to have belonged to a kind of obelisk the rest of
which has disappeared. There are no signs of any plinth.1
Finally, the Burdj-cl-Bczzak^ of which we have already had
occasion to speak, is also crowned by a pyramid (Figs. 6 and 87)."
\Ve have already explained that it is distinguished from other
Arvadite tombs by the fact that it is not built, like them, on
the top of a chamber. Its blocks have been shaken and dis-
placed by earthquakes ; the soldiers and brigands who have
inhabited it at various times, have done much to hasten its ruin,
and yet it is still the most important and the best preserved
building that has come down to us from ancient Phoenicia, for the
o
other tombs at Amrit are little more than monoliths. Its present
aspect is that of a cubical mass of masonry built with horizontal
courses and vertical joints ; the stones are more than sixteen feet
long, and are laid without cement. On exploring the heap of
debris gathered at its foot, it was discovered that this tomb was
originally surmounted by a pyramid, of which nearly all the
materials were found. It is likely that when the building was
turned into a fortalice the pyramid was demolished for the sake of
obtaining a Hat roof, which would be useful for defence. The
tomb as it stands is thirty-seven feet high. Judging from the
angle of the facing stones the crowning pyramid must have been
a little more than sixteen feet high. Its former appearance may
be gathered from M. Thobois's restoration (Fig. 6) ; its present
state is shown in Fig. 87.
In the interior there are two chambers, one above the other,
and each opening to the outer air by a narrow door, or rather
window. On their walls there are marks where the partitions
between the -niches have been torn away. It is difficult now to
decide whether these partitions were attached after the tomb was
finished, or whether they formed an integral part of the stones of
which it was composed. In any case, both chambers were honey-
combed with niches, the upper one having twelve (Fig. 100) and
the lower three.
Our view of the lower chamber (Fig. 101) shows a hole like the
opening of a sepulchral pit in the middle of the floor. This was
made, however, by the workmen of Dr. Gaillardot, one of the
1 RKNAN, Mission, pp. 80-90.
- Ibid. p. 75.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB.
161
assistants of M. Renan.1 Several blocks of stone were here removed,
and the wet mud on which the floor rests was reached. So that it
appears certain that the monument stands upon the sand, and does
not, like its neighbours, cover a subterranean chamber. It forms,
therefore, a unique variation upon the type of Phoenician tomb we
FIG. 100. — The Burdj-el-Bezzak. Upper chamber. From Kenan.
have described above, a type we shall encounter in other cemeteries
besides that of Arvad.
The next most important necropolis in Syria is that of
Sidon. The most curious discoveries have been made in it.
As might be guessed, it is larger than the cemetery of Arvad,
Sidon and its suburbs were far richer and more populous than the
FIG. loi. — The Burdj-el-Bezzak. Lower chamber. From Kenan.
group of cities of which Arvad was the head. If, in spite of
its wide extent, this cemetery is hardly so interesting to the
archaeologist as that of Amrit, it is because none of its tombs
o
have preserved their upper members — the part that rose above the
1 Mission, p. 87.
VOL. I.
162 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NH IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
soil and represented the primitive cippus. Saida has never ceased
to be a town with several thousands of inhabitants ; and by them
the stones of the visible monuments have been carried off and used
for their own purposes.1
The necropolis of Sidon was cut in a bed of calcareous rocks,
which stand but slightly above the plane.' The arrangement of
its tombs was like that of Amrit, according to Gaillardot, who
spent several years in exploring this cemetery. The features by
which the most ancient sepulchres may be distinguished from
those of the Greek and Roman period are these : by vertical wells,
rectangular on plan, cut in the living rock ; at the bottom of these
'i. 102. — Section of a tomb at Sulun, From Rcnan.
wells one of the short sides, and sometimes both, is pierced by a
square doorway giving access to the tomb chamber (Fig. 102). :i
This doorway was kept walled up, and was opened only for burials.
The wells themselves were closed sometimes by slabs placed
athwart the opening below the layer of vegetable earth with
which the rock was covered (Fig. 103), sometimes lower down,
1 The summit of the mass of rock which incloses the great chamber called
Mu^haret-Abloun^ is carefully planed, as if to receive a pyramidal structure (RENAN,
Mission, p. 477).
'2 See plate Ixii. of M. Rerun's work. It gives a detailed plan of this cemetery.
3 REN AN, .]fissi(>n. p. 481.
Tin-; PHOENICIAN TOM 15.
just above the walled- up door of the coffin chamber (Fig. 104).
In the first case the wells are, of course, found empty, but as a
rule they are filled with earth. They had apparently to be
cleared every time a burial took place.1
Compared to those of Egypt, these Sidonian pits are shallow,
because the stratum of rock in which they are excavated has
an average thickness of hardly more than thirty feet, while it
rests upon sand impregnated with sea water. Sometimes, as at
Amrit, a tomb has been re-arranged and a flight of steps added
(Fig- 105).
These tombs have neither sarcophagi nor niches. In some the
dead are placed on the floor of the chamber, in others arranged in
FIGS. 103 and 104. — Wells in a tomb at Sidon. From Rtnan.
a. Vegetable earth. b. Dcor of tomb chamber. c. Well. d. Slab. e. Sand.
large and carefully-excavated graves. In both cases they rested
upon beds of sand, the pelvis raised ten or twelve inches above the
head and feet by a little heap of pebbles carefully arranged.
Next come the tombs in which the chamber is surrounded by
niches for coffins, and those in which the more important people,
the heads of the family perhaps, repose in sarcophagi placed in
graves cut in the floor of the sepulchre.2 The fine series of
anthropoid sarcophagi in the Louvre was found in tombs of this
kind. Judging from the style of the heads on these marble
coffins, we are inclined to ascribe the oldest among them to the
1 REXAN, Mission, pp. 496, 497.
2 Ibid. p. 482.
164 HISTORY OF ART IN PIHKNKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCES.
time of the Persian domination, while the most recent may date
from the Seleucido.'.
Lastly, to the Grojco- Roman period belong- a large number of
sepulchres that were made or enlarged at the expense of others of
much earlier date. These are always reached by flights of steps.
Their chambers are very large and pierced with recesses in which
many sarcophagi have been found, whose approximate date is
given by the style of their ornamentation. All doubt on this
point is removed by the style of the paintings on the stuccoed
walls, and by the fragmentary inscriptions which are still to be
found at many points.
Fir,. 105. — Longitudinal section of a tomb at Sidon. From Renrm.
The tomb of Esmounazar deserves to be specially studied,
both for its arrangement and on account of the peculiar form of
the sarcophagus it inclosed. And first I must draw attention to
the plan of that part of the necropolis in which the king's
sepulchre was placed (Fig. 106). The sections through the lines
A, B, c ; D, E ; N, M ; and K, L (Figs. 107-1 10), give even a better
idea than the plan of the aspect and formation of the ground. A
salient mass of rock has been excavated in such a way as to
accommodate several burial-daces. Those to which the attention
A.
of explorers was first called were found arranged round a large
chamber known as the Mugharet-Ablount or "grotto of Apollo " (R),
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB.
165
where there were also several graves excavated through the floor.1
In this chamber the fragments of one of the most interesting of
FIG. 106. — Plan of a portion of the necropolis of Sidon (Mugharet-Abloun). From Renan.
the anthropoid sarcophagi were collected. It was broken into so
many pieces that it has been found impossible to restore it (s).2
6 a 7 5 5
FIG. 107. — Section through line A, B, c, of Fig 106. From Renan.
By the side of this chamber a well descended entirely through
the mass of rock and tapped the water beneath (v) ; it was used,
1 Upon the arrangement of this chamber and the discoveries made in it, see M.
GAILLARDOT'S Journal des Fouilles (Mission, pp. 436-440.)
2 It is now in the Louvre.
106 HISTORY OF ART IN PIUKNICIA AND ITS DKI-KNUKXCIES.
perhaps, in the ceremonies which accompanied the introduction of
a body into the tomb.
To the north-east of the rock in which this great chamber was
excavated, the tomb of Esmounazar, King of Sidon, was dis-
covered in 1856. A sketch made on the spot by M. de Vogue,
and here presented in the form of a section, will serve to show
/ -• J «
FIG. 108. — Section through D, E.
the arrangement of the parts (Fig. 1 1 1).1 The sarcophagus which
had already been removed from the monument when his sketch
was taken, is here restored to its place.
" The sarcophagus is a ponderous coffin of black amphibolite ;
it is composed of two pieces, a body and a lid (Fig. 86). It
rested in a grave measuring ten feet by five, excavated in the
FIG. 109. — Section
through N, M.
m
a i t j « 5 ^
FIG. no.— Section
through K, L.
living rock. Hollows cut in the floor of the grave permitted the
ropes to be withdrawn with which the sarcophagus was lowered,
1 DE Vocui, Note sur la Forme du Tombeau <T Echmounazar (Journal Asiatique,
1880, pp. 278-286). For a history of the discovery and an account of the works
dealing with this precious monument, see the Corpus Inscriptionum Seiniticarum,
pars i. No. 3.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMK. 167
while a ledge (F), some three feet eight inches from the top, sup-
ported, no doubt, a heavy lid, an arrangement often encountered
in the necropolis of Sidon. In most of the tombs in the neigh-
bourhood, however, the graves opened into rock-cut sepulchral
chambers, while that of Esmounazar, excavated at the extreme
edge of a rocky mass, was not subterranean, and before it could
have arrangements like those of the hypogea about it, it had to be
completed by external constructions. In order to provide a sure
foundation for these, the rock was levelled at the top and all its
salient parts cut into convenient shapes. The shape to which the
rock was thus reduced maybe seen in our wood-cut (Fig. 111).
The lower blocks of the upper building rested on these step-like
surfaces ; they have now all disappeared, with the exception of
three in the an^le on the left marked V, v. One of these stones
FIG. III.— Tomb of Esmounazar. Section through chamber and structures adjoining.
From D<j Yo^ue.
is bevelled (v), and in this it corresponds with the rock at the
opposite angle. This suggests that from these two sloping surfaces
an arch sprang originally and made the small chamber a kind of
artificial hypogeum. At s there is a groove in the rock like the
threshold of a small door, the architrave of which must have been
built into the neighbouring hollow.
" To sum up, the body reposed in a sarcophagus, which again
was inclosed in a grave covered by a small vaulted apartment ;
the whole was prefaced by a court excavated in the rock. It is
probable that a pavilion of some kind rose above the tomb, but
no trace of it can now be found." l
After carefully examining all the material evidence, M. de
1 DE VOGUE, Note sur la Forme du Tombeau d1 Echmounazar. M. GAILLARDOT
also believes in the existence of a pavilion (Mission, p. 342).
1 68 HISTORY OF ART i\ PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Vogiie sought for additional information in the terms of the
inscription, ami at last was enabled to compile the restoration,
some idea of which is afforded by our section (Fig. II2).1 The
built portion may readily be distinguished from that which is
native rock by a difference in the shading.
\Ye now know that the tomb of Ksmounazar is much less
ancient than it was once thought to be. Its comparative lateness
was suspected as soon as the necropolis had been more thoroughly
explored and a relative date assigned to the tombs. None of the
characteristics of the oldest tombs are to be found in it. There is
no well, no chamber hoHowcd in the depths of the rock ; the king
rests upon the surface of the soil, in a chamber with a built vault.
The conclusion to which these facts pointed was confirmed by an
KM. 112. — Section ot the tomb of KsmoAnaziir resit
examination of the sarcophagus. This was certainly not made in
Phoenicia, where they possessed neither the very hard rock of
which it is composed nor the skill to cut it. It must, in fact, have
been imported from Egypt, and perhaps Esmounazar may not
even have been its first proprietor. Upon that part of the lid
1 M. Di: VOGUK gives the following translation of those passages in the inscription
which, in his opinion, confirm his restoration : Lines 3-6, " I repose in this stone
coffin, in this grave in this monument which I have built. I conjure all men, be
they of royal or common blood, not to open my sarcophagus nor to look for treasure
about me, for there is no treasure about me ; (I conjure them) not to remove my
sarcophagus, and not to load me (as I lie) in my sarcophagus with the vault of a
second grave." Lines 7, 8, "Any man who opens the vault of this sarcophagus or
who carries off my sarcophagus, or builds above me in my sarcophagus." Line 10,
"The man who shall open the vault of this sarcophagus or shall take away this stone
coffin . . . ." Lines 20, 21, "I conjure all men not to open my vault, not to
destroy my vault, j^ot to build above my sarcophagus, nor to carry it away."
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB. 169
which now bears the chief inscription the surface is slightly
depressed, and Mariette was inclined to think that this gentle
hollow occupied the place of a hieroglyphic inscription, which
had been effaced by the polisher to make way for a new epitaph.1
However this may be, whether Esmounazar was content with a
ready-made sarcophagus, or whether he commissioned one for
himself, the fact remains that Mariette, whose experience in such
matters was very great, declared that this coffin could not be older
than the time of Psammeticus. He had never found anything
of the kind in Upper Egypt ; the quarries from which the rock
was taken, those of Hammamat, on the way from Kaneh to
Kosseyr, were not opened till towards the end of the twenty-sixth
dynasty. It was about the same time that sarcophagi of this
pattern first appeared, and under the following dynasties they
became more and more common, down even to the period of the
Greek conquest. We are thus led to believe that Esmounazar
must have reigned towards the beginning of the fourth century
B.C., an idea which is in complete harmony with the text of his
epitaph.2 We thus find ourselves brought very near the hour
when Greek art was to triumph in Phoenicia as over the rest of
the Levant, and yet we find a prince of Sidon turning to Egypt
for the couch on which he was to sink into his final sleep.
At the end of his elaborate study of the tombs near Sidon,
M. Renan confesses that in spite of his own care and the zeal of
his devoted and intelligent collaborator, M. Gaillardot, none of the
tombs he cleared or objects he found in them belonged, except
in a very few instances, to a period anterior to the Assyrian domi-
nation, and that most of them dated from the time of the Achae-
menids. The cemetery he explored so conscientiously seemed
to him very small to have sufficed, during imny centuries, for a
town so rich and so thickly peopled as Sidon, and he asks himself
whether his successors have not yet to find the necropolis of the
early founders of the Phoenician power, of those hardy navigators
who were the first to explore the western seas.3
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 414, No. 3.
2 Corpus Inscriplionum Semiticarum, pars i. p. 20. M. Clermont-Ganneau
is ready to believe that the " Master of Kings " mentioned in this inscription — he
who, in reward for services rendered, gave over Dora and Joppa to Esmounazar
— was no other than Alexander. In that case the tomb would only date from the
last years of the fourth century before our era.
3 RENAN, Mission, pp. 503, 504.
VOL. I. Z
1 70 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
In the neighbourhood of Tyre, still greater disappointment awaits
the explorer. There are traces everywhere of sepulchral excava-
tions in the rocks that rise above the narrow band of sea-washed
plain ; but in nearly every case the slight consistency of the rock has
caused the roofs to fall in. In the few cases in which a tomb has
been found in fair condition there are neither inscriptions nor
mouldings nor anything else to indicate its date. Sarcophagi,
graves, niches, all have been gutted many centuries ago.
Nothing more naked and bare than these tombs could be
imagined.1
The only monument in the whole of this district that greatly
excites our curiosity is that known as the Kabr-Hiram, or " tomb
of Hiram " (Fig. i 13). This denomination, which is quite recent,
has no value ; no importance whatever must be attached to it,
while a study of the building itself yields no evidence as to its
date. There is no inscription either on the building itself, or in
the chamber attached to it ; there is nothing in fact to give a hint
of a plausible solution. In the chamber there is neither niche nor
grave, there is nothing in fact to suggest a sepulchre ; besides
which the chamber does not seem to have been excavated at the
time the monument was built ; they agree ill together and do not
seem to be parts of the same ensemble? However this may be,
the appearance of the building recalls that of the great tombs at
Amrit. The lower part consists of a square base, ending in a
cornice which separates it from an upper story slightly pyramidal
in shape. But the latter is not a pyramid ; it is a huge sarcophagus
in two pieces, the body and the lid. The total elevation of the
building, measured from the bottom of the first course, is a little
more than twenty feet. The want of regularity, which is taken to
be one of the signs by which one may recognize works dating
from the earliest Phoenician antiquity is here conspicuous.3 At a
distance the monument is not without effect ; it imposes by its
mass. But on a close examination we find that the pyramidal
shape is not well obtained, and that one side is nearly perpendicular.
The faces do not correspond. On those turned towards the road,
the stone is carefully worked and dressed, on the others it is
almost in its natural state. Taking it all in all we are inclined to
o
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 589.
2 Ibid. pp. 599-602, and plates xlvii., xlviii.
8 Ibid. p. 829.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMK. 173
think that the pretended tomb of Hiram, even if it does not date
from Solomon's famous contemporary, must nevertheless be
ascribed to a period earlier than that of the Greeks and Romans.
The necropolis of Adloun, between Tyre and Sidon, attracts the
attention of the traveller by the isolation of the rocky mass in
which the tombs are cut, at the edge of the road which runs alonir
£> o
the sea (Fig. 114); but the chambers are small, narrow, and low ;
there is only room in each for about three corpses.1 It is the
burial-place belonging to the small neighbouring city. Vaults and
arches, which in Phoenicia are a sign of comparative lateness,
FIG. 114. — Necropolis of Adloun. From Lortet.
continually occur in it. Doorways, with arches springing direct
from their thresholds, and benches within, hollowed out like troughs
and covered, as in the Roman catacombs, with an arcosolium, betray
the Grseco-Roman epoch. Many of the chambers are even
decorated with paintings in which Christian emblems may be
recognized.
At Gebal and in its neighbourhood there are, on the other hand,
hypogea whose number and size bear witness to the importance of
1 Ibid. pp. 656-661. The interest and importance of this necropolis has been
much exaggerated (DE BERTON, Essai si/r la Topographic <fe Tyre. p. 85. Rfnte
Archeofagique, 1834, pp. 18 et sec/. )
174 lli>T(»i<v OK ART IN PIHKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the town to which they belonged. The Giblite sepulchres are
mainly distinguished from those of Arvad and Sidon by having
their openings in the vertical faces or slopes of the rocks in which
they are cut ; they are not very deep, and, being without either
well or pit, are entered on the level.1 The doorway is sometimes
ornamented, but always very simply. Thus one example which
is believed to be very ancient, has above its entrance a smal)
triangular pediment with a sculptured rosette in the middle
(Fig. n5).2
Some of these tombs have a character of grand and primitive
simplicity. In their interiors neither ornaments nor mouldings, but
spacious recesses cut symmetrically in the living rock, are to be found
(Fig. 1 1 6). In one or two cases they are even natural grottoes, in the
floor of which huge troughs have been excavated, and afterwards
closed by thick slabs. These slabs are prisms of stone, triangular
sometimes, but as a rule quadrangular ; they are always roughly
blocked out, and without inscription or device of any kind. The
troughs are filled with water that creeps through the pores of wall
and ceiling. " I know nothing more impressive," says M. Renan,
" than these solitary grottoes where the sound of falling drops of
water alone breaks in upon the silence, and where the slow industry
of the stalactites obscures the ruin of the centuries. I recommend a
visit to these grottoes to painters of sacred history who go to the
East for inspiration. Few places are more picturesque. These tombs
are fit for heroes, for the heroes of Homer or the giants of early
Hebrew legend."
It is chiefly in the necropolis of Gebal that a feature is to be
noticed which we encounter elsewhere in the cemeteries of
Phoenicia, but more rarely.4 If we enter one of the chambers of
which we have been speaking, we shall find almost always that the
ceiling is pierced with a number of round holes. Sometimes these
holes are so close together that they make the ceiling look like a
sieve. They are air holes, drilled through the whole thickness of
the rock. The inner face of these little shafts is either smooth
or marked with horizontal scratches. The perforation has been
carried out with the auger. The average diameter of these shafts
is ten inches. They widen out into a trumpet mouth as they
approach the outer air. At first it was thought that they really
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 206. ~ Ibid. p. 205.
3 Ibid. p. 204. 4 Ibid. pp. 194-198.
FIG. 115. — Ejitrance to a Giblite tomb. From Renan.
THK PiKKMciAN TOMII. 177
were air-holes, but when the surface of the rock all round Gebal
was explored, it was found that the shafts often occurred where no
hypogeum was known to exist. The most obvious idea to strike
the explorers was that the rock was hollowed beneath into vast
catacombs, whose entrances had been so well concealed that it had
escaped all their researches, and the best way to vertify their con-
jecture seemed to be to descend into the supposed hypogea by the
air-holes themselves. This was tried at various points. The
shafts were enlarged and workmen lowered down them, but not a
single new tomb was discovered. At fifteen, twenty, or five-and-
twenty feet, as the case might be, the shafts suddenly grew
narrower and ended in a cul-de-sac, as if at about that distance the
instrument used lost its force and had to stop. The only possible
FIG. 116. — Interior of a Giblite tomb. From Kenan.
explanation seemed to be that before sepulchral excavations were
begun, trials were made of the quality and homogeneity of the
rock so as to have some fore-knowledge of the difficulties to be
overcome. And this hypothesis is decisively confirmed by an
examination of those chambers in which the ceiling is thus pierced.
The holes do not all end in the ceiling. Some of them run down
the walls in a way that makes them quite useless ; some cut into
the jambs of the door, others are sunk close to the chamber without
actually touching it. Now and then we find a shaft so long that
the end of it appears in the floor. It is evident, therefore, that
these shafts are preparatory soundings, made before the actual
cutting of the chamber was begun. If any more evidence were
required to prove that they had nothing to do writh supplying
light or air, it would be given by the fact that those shafts which
VOL. T. A A
i;^ HISTORY OK ART IN PHU.MCIA AND ITS DKPKNDKNCIKS.
end in a tomb-chamber were always found blocked up by large
stones to prevent the earth fall ing into the tomb, or mischievous
people from throwing things down the shalt.
The accompanying diagram (1'ig- i i /) was prepared for the
illustration of M. Kenan's observations upon these shafts. It
does not reproduce any particular tomb, but the peculiarities found
in different parts of the Giblite necropolis are united in it. No
instance of this curious habit is to be found outside Phoenicia,
where, moreover, it is a specially Giblite custom. \Ve have no
reason to suppose that it dates Irom a very remote epoch. '1 hese
tubes are not to be found in the oldest hypogea ; at Saicla the
tombs in which they occur are not among the more archaic.
We may conclude this part of our inquiry with M. Renan's
statement of the conclusions to which he was brought by his study
Fin. 117. — Section showing the soundings in the (Jihlitc tombs. 1-Yoin Rcn;ui.
of the cemeteries of Amrit and Saida : ]- — " There can be no
doubt but that the rectangular grottoes with wells are the most
ancient. The arrangements of the wells and the way in which
they open laterally into the coffin-chambers are quite Egyptian.
In these the antique notion of a tomb appears in all its grandeur.
There is no ostentation ; no wish to impress the passing stranger ;
the one thought is to honour the dead as if he were still alive.
The prevalence of horizontal lines and the absence of all Greek
or Roman influence, the extreme simplicity of the plan, the
indifference to small details and to all that has to clo with con-
venience, finally, and above all, the .rigorous agreement between
the character of these tombs and the Biblical metaphors, are so
many features all pointing to the same conclusion, namely, that they
1 REXAX, Mission, pp. 75 and 410.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 179
are the oldest of the Phoenician graves. The well into which the
corpse was lowered, the gaping mouth that appeared ever to beg for
more, was that mouth of the sheol (ps putei) which gave rise to the
favourite image of the Hebrews, ' The mouth of the grave hath
devoured him.' So, too, for the Arvadite vicghazils ; those
were the horabotk, or pyramids, which the richer men caused to
be raised upon their tombs in the time of Job, to the indignation
of that proud nomad.1
§ 3. — Sarcophagi and Sepulchral Furniture.
We have now studied the general arrangements of Phoenician
sepulchres, and shown that, although between one town
and another they presented certain differences, their ruling
principle was always the same ; all over the country, at Arvad
as at Tyre, the tomb was a cavern or pit cut in the living rock.
We have yet, however, to follow the corpse into its grave, to
inquire what changes took place in the mode of sepulture as the
centuries passed on, and of what the furniture with which the
piety of the living filled the chamber of the dead consisted.
In the first, the most remote, antiquity, the body was wrapped
in a shroud and placed in a cave. In later times, when the
use of tools had been learnt, niches were hollowed out in the
natural walls of the grotto, or pits dug through its floor ; some-
times these pits were dug in the open air on the rocky platforms
above the slopes on which the hypogea opened (Fig. 118).
But in time a race like the Phoenicians, whose intercourse with
Egypt was so intimate, were sure to learn how to give their dead
an extra guarantee of duration, in the form either of one of those
stone chests which we call sarcophagi, or of a cedar coffin held
together and fortified by strong metal clasps.
The simplest sarcophagi are no more than huge stone boxes
with lids rising into a rid^e in the centre. One of these is seen
o o
in our Fig. 119, which represents a tomb excavated by M. Renan
at Gebal. Above and beyond it another but much more orna-
mental specimen of the same class appears. As time went on, the
1 JOB iii. 14 ; xxi. 32. As to the sense in which M. REX AN interprets the word
horaboth, see his Histoire generate des Langues shnitiques, p. 20.4, third edition.
i So lIisTukv OK ART IN I'I^KNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
forms of these sarcophagi became; more complex. At Oum-el-
Awamid one lias been found with acroteria at each of its four
angles and at the summit of the small pediment formed by the
ends of its triangular lid (Fig. 120).' The interest of this monu-
ment is enhanced by the small altar which appears in the centre
of one end ; it is designed on the same lines as the sarcophagus
itself. Altars like these are not rare in the Tyrian country.
They were, no doubt, both emblems of the worship paid by a
family to its dead, and instruments by which the rites were
performed. In all probability, the little cippi with egg-shaped
&lfti,-.. :; •-.:,
FIG. 118. — (iravcs dug in the rock at Gel>n]. From Rcnnn.
summits which have been found in the necropolis of Sidon served
a purpose of the same kind ; they were most likely erected either
on the top of sepulchres or in front of their entrances (Fig. 121).
The ornamentation of the trough-like sandstone coffins, which
are found in considerable quantities in the necropolis of Sidon, is
also of the most rudimentary kind (Fig. 122), but, nevertheless, a
few of them have been found marked with Greek letters, which,
unless they have been added afterwards, point to a late period of
the decadence.2 This seems to show that these patterns escaped
from the influence of fashion by their very simplicity ; invented
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 706, 707.
- Ibid. \\ 504.
SARCOPHAGI AXD SEPULCHRAL
181
early, they seem to have preserved their vogue more or less down
to the very last years of the antique civilization, so that they are,
in themselves, insufficient to give a date to a sepulchre. But the
case is different when \ve encounter sarcophagi decorated \vith
FIG. 119. — Two Giblite sarcophagi. From Renan.
lions' heads or ox-skulls united by heavy garlands.1 The execu-
tion of these matters is heavy, belonging, in fact, to provincial
Roman art. Another kind of coffin, dating from the same period
1 RKNAN, Mission, pp. 411 and 422, and plate xlv. fig. i ; plate Ix. Several of
these are in the Louvre.
iS2 HISTORY <>F ART IN PIKK.NICIA AND ITS I )I-:I>K\DK\CIKS.
of the decadence, is the leaden sarcophagus which is found chiefly
in the necropolis of Sidon.1 It is made up of leaden plates cast
Kir.. 120. — Sarcophagus from Oum-el-Awamiil. Kmm Kenan.
in a mould and then soldered one to another (Fig. 123). The
myth of Psyche is very often represented on these leaden coffins,
Kir,. 121.— Cippus from Salon. II 'iglit 14 indies. From Kenan.
which are to be found, so far as we know, only in Phoenicia. In
' RF.NAN, Mission, p. 427, and jilate lx. fig. r.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. iS;,
the same necropolis pieces of coffins in terra-cotta are often
encountered ; l being so easily broken, they have in most cases
been reduced to fragments by the treasure-hunters.
The monuments to which it is possible to give at least an
approximate date are the sarcophagi called by M. Renan an-
tliropoid, after the expression made use of by Herodotus when he
speaks of the Egyptian mummy-cases." Like the leaden coffins,
FIG. 122. — Sandstone coffin. From Kenan.
these anthropoid sarcophagi are peculiar to Phoenicia. \\'ith a
single exception, that of Tyre, every necropolis in Phoenicia has
furnished examples of them.3
In the sarcophagus of Esmounazar both material and work-
manship are Egyptian (Fig. 86). It was, in fact, imported into
Syria, where nothing was added to it but the long inscription, in
FIG. 123. — Leaden coffin. From Lortet.
which, however, most of its value consists. But the anthropoid
sarcophagi belong to Phoenician art. Their form is the result of
one of those efforts of adaptation which were characteristic of the
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 496.
2 SrAivov TVTTOV av^pwTroetSea. — HERODOTUS, ii. 86.
3 See RENAN, Mission, pp. 403-405 and 412-427, plates lix. and Ix. Cf.
LONGPERIER, Mus'ee Napoleon ///., notices of plates xvi. and xvii,
HISTORY <>F ART IN PIM.NH i.\ AND
DKPKXDENCIKS.
clever, rather than inventive, artists ot Phoenicia. It was cer-
tainly suggested by the shape of the wooden mummy-cases with
which her merchants were so familiar in the land of the Pharaohs.
We are sure of this, not only because the coffin is made to follow
the general lines of the body, or because there is anything impro-
bable in two races having independently determined to figure
the dead man couched on the lid of his tomb ; but because the
Egyptian convention which represents the head and neck of the
dead man on the lid of his sarcophagus while all the rest of
him is left in a state of abstraction is followed. The peculiar
physiognomy given by a custom like this to a mummy-case is
to be found in these Phoenician sarcophagi and nowhere else out
Fu;. 124. — Sarcophagus of Sidoii. Louvre.
of Egypt. Equally significant is the fact that as the wooden
coffins of Egypt were decorated with brilliant colours so were
these stone receptacles. All those who have had the chance of
seeing any of them before they were disturbed, or soon after-
wards, are unanimous in declaring that the traces of colour were
still very marked. On the hair dark blue and red have been
distinguished ; the latter colour spreading even over part of
the face. The body of a sarcophagus of this kind which was
found in 1/25, near Palermo, was ornamented round its sides with
pictures in panels (Fig. 125) ; the colouring substances stained
the hands of those who touched it.1 When they were new these
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 416. DE LOXGPERIER, Mus'ce Napoleon ///, description
of plate xvii. In the Phoenician cemetery at Cagliari, in Sardinia, where the dead
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE.
185
sarcophagi with their brilliant colours must have looked very like
the Egyptian mummy-cases ; perhaps, as in Egypt, the lips and
hair were gilded. The' resemblance between the two kinds of
coffins is completed by the salience at the lower extremity of
the lid, corresponding to the feet (Fig. 126). That mummy-cases
should have been finished off in this way was natural enough.
They were light and movable, and in certain cases were set upright
against a wall,1 and the enlarged foot was given to add to their
stability. But in the heavy stone envelopes of Phoenicia there
was no such necessity ; they were intended to lie on their backs
as they have been found in all those tombs — at JMugharet-Abloun
for instance — in which they had preserved their proper places.
This appendix is, therefore, quite useless in the Phoenician coffins ;
FIG. 125. — Coffin of painted stone from an old drawing. From D'Orville.3
it is the literal reproduction of a detail which had a raison d'etre
in the model, but has none in the copy.
Whether, then, we look at the general idea, at the accidental
forms, or at the external decoration of these sarcophagi, we are
were buried in wooden coffins, it has been ascertained that when those coffins were
first discovered their surfaces showed clear signs ot having once been painted. On
one -of them bands of red, blue, white, and green were clearly discernible (Fu.
ELENA, Scari nella necropoli occidentale di Cagliari, Cagliari, 1868, 4to, p. 19).
1 In the Egyptian tombs the mummies have always been found lying down, but
in the funerary ceremonies they were, during the celebration of certain rites, set up
on end. This we know from a large number of pictures and reliefs (WILKINSON,
Ancient Egyptians, second edition, vol. iii. cap. xvi. figs. 624-626, plates xvii. and Ixviii.,
&c.). The Greeks and Romans were mistaken in supposing that the mummies were
set up in the tomb in a vertical position (HERODOTUS, ii. 86 ; DIODORUS, i. xcii. ;
SILIUS ITALICUS, xiii. v. 474-476).
2 Journal des Fouilles of GAILLARDOT, in RENAN, Mission, pp. 434 and 435,
3 Sici/la, vol. i. plate B, p. 43.
VOL. I. B B
1 86 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
always brought to the same result ; everything tells us of a
borrowing from Egypt by Phiunicia. Must we conclude from
this that the borrowing took place at a very remote period, during
the early days of the commerce between the towns on the Syrian
I'll'.. 126.— Sarcophagus oi Si<lon. Louvre.
coast and those of the Delta ? Certainly not. Egypt furnished
the primitive elements of the type, but it is not the influence
of Egypt that we find in the execution. There is but one of these
anthropoid coffins in which the arrangement of the headdress is
!•'«;. 127. — Head from an anthropoid sarcophagus of Sitlon. Louvre.
Egyptian, and even there the profile is quite Greek in its elegance
(Fig. 127). In the whole range of Egyptian art there is nothing
in the least like the symmetrical curls of these Phoenician heads,
which remind us at first sight of Assyrian sculpture (Fig. 128);
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE.
187
but if we look more closely we shall find still stronger points
of likeness to the work of Greek artists. In the example which
we incline to believe is the oldest of them all (Fig. 128), the
undulating masses of hair are chiselled, and the planes of the face
established with a skill that could never have been learnt in the
school of Assyria. If we attempt, like M. Renan, to class these
monuments chronologically according to their workmanship, we
find the heads becoming ever more and more Hellenic at the same
time as the shape of the coffin-lid was steadily modified. In the
example which appears the most modern of all, judging from the
arrangement of the hair and the characteristics of its style as a
"/,//; ' 'ui!n''iiii/-wm^!^^:^^
, • • - , „,, • , ,t , , I n Y*'ii*A^«gi=a»*™"""" , ^ — "-^
l\\\lliM^
FIG. 128. — Sarcophagus from Siclon. Length 7 feet 1 inch.
whole, the head belongs to a type which is commonly supposed to
have been created by Lysippus, the type of the Apollo Belvedere
(Fig. 129). Moreover, this head, instead of being buried, and, as
it were, lost in the mass of the sarcophagus, is almost " in the
round," while the receptacle itself has become nearly rectangular,
and has lost most of the peculiar features of the primitive type.
We have, in fact, arrived at the last member of the series.
How long a time must we suppose this series of remains to
have covered ? We admit willingly that they go back as far as
the reigns of the first Seleucids, to the third century before our
era, but we are not inclined to believe that any of them date from
iSS HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the period of Assyrian supremacy.1 In our opinion none of these
anthropoid sarcophagi are older than the sixth century B.C. ; most
of them belong to the period between the reign of Cyrus and the
battle of Arbela, an epoch of singular prosperity for Phoenicia ;
finally, a few among them are posterior to the Macedonian con-
quest. We have encountered none that suggest the Roman
period, and we are, moreover, confirmed in our belief that the
fashion of these sarcophagi did not persist beyond the limits we
have assigned to them by the well-ascertained fact that, so far at
least as the necropolis of Sidon is concerned, every sarcophagus
of the kind which has been recovered, whether intact or in a
FIG. 129. — Sarcophagus from Sidon. Louvre.
thousand pieces, has been found in the tombs with rectangular
^
wells and no staircases, that is to say, in sepulchres which,
without dating from the earliest ages, are yet of a very respectable
antiquity.2
"Our sarcophagi," says M. Renan, "cover, in my opinion, a very wide extent
of time, and give us examples of Phoenician art from about 800 or 900 to about
200 B.C." (Mission, p. 421). We agree with M. Renan only when he allows that the
great majority of these monuments belong to the period in which, in our belief, they
were all manufactured. M. Heuzey is"" quite of our opinion ; in fact, he even goes
farther; he thinks the oldest of these sculptures does not date from a period
anterior to the fifth century (Catalogue des Figurines en Terre cuite du Musee du
Louvre, p. 85).
2 RENAN, Mission, p. 422.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 189
As the general forms of these coffins were borrowed from Egypt
and the minor characteristics of their style from Greece, so their
material too was brought from abroad. They were objects of
luxury to be acquired only by the rich, and when the latter gave a
commission to the sculptor for a sarcophagus on which their own
features were to be carried down to posterity, they naturally
wished that it should be executed in some material which should
allow the artist to make use of his talent to the best advantage.
o
The limestone of the country did not lend itself kindly to the
chisel, and the custom arose of going abroad in search of a rock
of finer and firmer grain.1 Nearly all the anthropoid sarcophagi
hitherto discovered are made of a marble which is not to be found
in Syria ; it was brought, in all probability, from those Grecian
islands with which the Phoenicians had such a close and long-
standing connection. One of the few exceptions to which we
need allude is a sarcophagus with a head sculptured upon it, the
material of which is brown lava from Safita. It was found by
M. Renan in the necropolis of Arvad, and sent home to the
Louvre.2 A few, too, were made of terra-cotta, for those no
doubt to whom economy was a consideration. Of one of these
the Louvre possesses the upper parts (Fig. 130). It comes from
Amrit, in Northern Phoenicia.3
But whatever their material, all these anthropoid sarcophagi
were made in Phoenicia. The coffin of Esmounazar is, indeed,
Egyptian in workmanship, and many sarcophagi have been found in
the necropolis of Memphis which may be called its brothers ; 4 but
it is otherwise with the rest of these sculptured chests. In the
Boulak Museum there are, no doubt, some twenty marble coffins,
dating -from the Greek or Persian epochs, which might be com-
pared to our Phoenician sarcophagi ; but the resemblance is more
apparent than real. The sarcophagi of Phoenicia are large and
deep troughs ; those of Egypt are simply mummy-boxes cut in
stone instead of being built up of wood or cartonnage. They
were meant to be placed in an outer case of stone, granite, or
basalt, similar to that of Esmounazar (Fig. i3i).5
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 426. 2 Ibid. pp. 45, 46, and plate vi.
3 This discovery is described by M. RENAN in a paper entitled : " Un Masque en
terre cuite recemment acquis par la Musce du Louvre " (Rente arcMologique^ 2nd
series, vol. xxxvi. pp. 73, 74, and plate xvi.
4 RENAN, Mission, p. 413. "' Ibid. p. 414, note 4.
HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA ANH ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Other indications point to the same conclusion. One of the
anthropoid sarcophagi in the Louvre, that which comes from
Byblos, is marked with a Phd-nician letter on its shoulder; still
more decisive is the existence of the Tortosa coffin in brown lava,
that is to say, in the material of the country : we may draw the
same conclusion from the fragmentary head in terra-cotta figured
on this page (Fig. 130). In its general appearance the influence
of archaic Greek art can be clearly traced, but some of its details
are quite local in character, especially the corkscrew curl at the
side of the cheek, the earrings in the shape of a broken circle,
FIG. 130. — Fragment of an anthropoid sarcophagus in terra-cotta. Louvre.
and the rings along the top edge of the ears. All these details
belong to the costume of an Arvadite woman of about the time
of Cyrus.
It is clear, then, that these sarcophagi are a product of Phoeni-
cian industry ; if any further evidence were necessary, it would be
found in the fact, that, whenever they have been encountered
outside the frontiers of Phoenicia proper, it has always been at
some point where the Phoenicians are known to have made a
lengthy sojourn. They have been found in Cyprus, at Kitionv
which was strictly a Phoenician city, and at Amathus, where
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 191
the influence of Syrian culture seems to have been long pre-
dominant.1 At these places they were of marble, but those
discovered in Malta and Gozo were all of terra-cotta.- We have
seen that the Phoenicians at home also made use of this material.
In Sicily two at least, perhaps three, have been found in the
neighbourhood of Solunte, an old Phoenician city on the northern
coast, some leagues west of Panormus, the modern Palermo.3 They
are both of marble. The excavations on the site of Carthage have
not yet brought any anthropoid sarcophagi to light, and it is
thought, therefore, that those of Solunte were carved for Phocni-
o '
cian immigrants rather than for the native Punic merchants.
Corsica, too, has furnished similar relics. The Phoenicians, so
long established in Sardinia and on the Ligurian coast, certainly
had naval stations, factories, or at least harbours of refuge and
victualling ports, on the shores of the smaller island ; and some of
FIG. 131. — Comparative sections of. a Phoenician sarcophagus and an Egyptian mummy-case.
From Renan.
their people must there have died and found their graves. This
is proved by the monument noticed by Merimee, in 1840, as a
" statue of Appriciani," but of which the true character escaped
him.4 The materials for comparison were then, in fact, beyond his
reach. But the conditions were changed when the Louvre was
o
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 53.
2 RENAN, Mission, p. 424. CARUAN.A, Report on t]ie PJuvnidan and Roman
Antiquities in the Group of the Islands of Malta (8vo, Malta, 1882), p. 29. One of
those here quoted bears a male, the other a female, figure.
3 RENAN, Mission, pp. 405, 406. Of these two sarcophagi one was found in
1695, the other in 1725. It appears from the plates to Orville (Sicula, vol. i.,
Amsterdam, 1764, p. 42 et set].} that three of these sarcophagi were known in the
eighteenth century. Only two are known at present. They are both in the museum
at Palermo, and were described by D'ONDES REGGIO in 1864, in the Bullettino della
commissione di antichita e di belle arti in Sitilia, p. i, pi. i. Nos. 1-3. As early as
1847 FRANCESCO DI GIOVANNI recognized their Phoenician origin ; his paper is
printed at the head of the Bullettitw, before that of d'Ondes Reggio.
4 Notes (Fun Voyage en Corse, p. 53 et seq. The condition of the monument is
too bad to warrant the reproduction of Merimee's sketches in these pages.
192 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
enriched by many specimens of the same kind. The collation was
then made with great care and precision by a young official who
was too soon lost to science, M. Aucapitaine,1 and there can now
be no doubt that in this monument we have the granite lid of a
sarcophagus like those from Sidon. The head is freely disengaged
from the shoulders, a detail which is only to be found in those
sarcophagi which seem latest in date."
These anthropoid sarcophagi belong to two different types ; the
simpler of the two is that to which we have drawn attention by
several examples (Figs. 124, 126, 128, and 129). Here the head
alone is figured on the lid, sometimes with the neck and the round-
ness of the shoulders slightly indicated. This is by far the
commonest pattern ; but the excavations of M. Renan at Saida
have brought another to light, in which the sculptor has not
FIG. 132. — Anthropoid sarcophagus from Sidon. Louvre. Length 8 feet 10 inches.
hesitated to attempt a much more detailed rendering of the
human form. This precious monument is now in the Louvre ; it
was recovered piece by piece from the earth, so often disturbed, of
the cave of Apollo.3 The head alone is missing (Fig. 132). In
this coffin the legs and hips are still buried in the mass of the lid,
but the arms are shown, one on either side of the body, and
the left hand grasping a small perfume-bottle. These arms are
bare, as the tunic only covers the shoulders. The feet, too, stood
out formerly beyond the robe, but they have been broken off.
1 Les Ph'tniciens en Corse, in the Rcruc africaine, Algiers, 1862, p. 471, and
plate attached to the article.
2 RKNAN, Mission, p. 864.
3 RENAN, Mission^ p. 403, and the Journal Jcs FmdUcs (Gaillardot), ibid.
PP- 437, 438-
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURI-:. 193
The material is a fine, white marble, like that of the sarcophagi
already described.
For a time this sarcophagus was thought to be unique, but the
interest excited by its discovery had the effect of drawing attention
to the two examples in the museum of Palermo, where they had
remained unnoticed for so long. They were at once recognized
as belonging to the same class as the sarcophagus from Sidon.
One of the two supplies a link between the types we have de-
scribed. The arms are shown in their places on the flanks of
the body, but there is neither costume nor accessory (Fig. 133).
The other is more archaic in its general aspect, but, of all these
monuments, it is that in which the sculptor has carried his work
the farthest. In the result we have what is nothing short of a
recumbent statue (Fig. 134). It shows us a woman robed in a
FIG. 133. — Sarcophagus from Solunte. In the Palermo Museum.
short sleeveless tunic and a long peplos falling to the feet ; the
right arm lies along the body, the hand resting on the thigh,
while the left is bent at the elbow, so that the hand with its
perfume-bottle rests upon the stomach. The breasts are indicated
under the drapery ; as in the terra-cotta statuettes, the plaited
tresses hang down upon the neck and chest. The sinuous lines
of this sarcophagus and the stone support on which the feet rest
are enough to prove that the Egyptian mummy-case was its
point of departure.1 The two sarcophagi of Palermo and the
fragments of the one from Sidon must then be taken to belong
to one group of monuments. Sicilian explorers cannot be too
strongly encouraged to go on with their work of excavation in the
1 These two sarcophagi have been engraved from photographs for which we have
to thank Signer Salinas, the keeper of the Palermo Museum. Of that reproduced
in Fig. 133 only the lid was found. The trough is a restoration in wood.
VOL. I. C C
194 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
neighbourhood of Solunte ; from all that we know of the facts,
it appears certain that the tombs in which these two sarcophag
were found were intact up till the moment of discovery.1
As to the comparative age of these sarcophagi, we cannot think
that those upon which heads, arms, and feet are sculptured give the
older of the two types. Notwithstanding what has been said, we
must assert that the modelling of those parts of the body which
are visible has nothing either Egyptian or Assyrian about it."
Both kinds of anthropoid sarcophagus were, in fact, made at one
and the same time ; the criterion to which we must look for help
in establishing a chronological series is the shape of the lower
half of the coffin and the relation it bears to its prototype, the
mummy-case. Looked at from this point of view, the specimens
of this second group must be placed towards the middle of the
series formed by the whole collection of these anthropoid sarco-
phagi.3 We arrive at a similar result if we ask how things
passed in Egypt. There the type in which the arms are shown
is later than that in which we see nothing but the head.4
None of the anthropoid sarcophagi have any inscription, and
yet no surface could be better fitted for such a thing than these
smooth lids, where, at first sight, it looks as if all ornament had
been forbidden on purpose to leave free scope for the cutter of
epitaphs. But the absence of anything of the kind ceases to
surprise us when we remember that the anthropoid sarcophagi
of Sidon were coloured over the whole of their surfaces. If they
had any inscriptions at all, those inscriptions must have been
painted on them like the vertical labels on the mummy-cases,
which give, as a rule, the name of their occupants. Neither must
we forget that these sarcophagi were not tombs, but marble
1 RENAN, Mission, p. 406. D'ORVILLK, Sicula, plate A, gives a section 01 one of
these tombs. A flight of steps gives access to a square chamber in which three
sarcophagi are shown, one facing the door, the two others at the sides.
2 DE LONGPERIER thought he could recognize something in common between
the sarcophagus of Mugharet-Abloun and the Assyrian sculptures of the reign of
Assurnazirpal ( Mus'ce Napoleon ///., plate xvii.). We believe that for once in a way
that fine connoisseur was mistaken. But the similarity between that monument
and the Palermo sarcophagi is great, and the execution of the latter is of such a.
kind that d'Ondes Reggio is inclined to ascribe them to the period of Alexander
the Great.
3 RENAN, Mission, p. 419.
4 MARIETTE, Notice du Musce de Boulak, second edition, p. 43.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL EUKMTUKK. 197
coffins ; they were not meant to be seen ; buried in deep and
carefully sealed caverns, they served to honour the dead, but
inscriptions on them would have been practically useless. The
sarcophagus of Esmounazar is an exception to this rule, but then
it was not found in a hypoo-eum ; moreover, it had never been
painted. Placed in a grave and covered by a pavilion reared
against the rocky mass of Mugharet-Abloun, it was almost in
the open air, and may even have been visible to the passer-by.1
Are the heads on these sarcophagi portraits ? or rather, are they
meant for portraits ? When the time comes to study the few ex-
isting remains of Phoenician sculpture, we shall attempt to answer
that question ; at present we must confine ourselves to reminding
our readers how many anthropoid sarcophagi were of terra-cotta.
This implies a regular trade, an industry, so far at least as it
concerns those for which clay supplied the material. In order to
bring them within reach of any but the richer classes, the masks
with winch they were adorned must have been obtained by the
help of moulds which could be used again and again. -
But the anthropoid sarcophagi are not the only ones to be found
in those rectangular tomb-chambers which come down to us from
the time when Phoenicia still preserved all the originality she ever
had. They also contained vast troughs of white marble, with lids
triangular in section but very flat (Fig. 135). The oldest coffins,
those cut from the limestone of the Lebanon, were of this shape ;
with the progress of luxury a finer material was brought from
abroad, from Paros or some other of the western islands. It
was so well chiselled and polished that even in the complete
absence of ornament we are impressed by a certain beauty due to
the great size of the coffins, to their good proportions, and to the
excellence of their workmanship.1'
Either for economy or for some reason which escapes us, stone
coffins seem at one period to have been superseded by wooden
ones. In those forests of Lebanon of which only a few shreds
now remain, the Phoenicians had supplies which must have seemed
1 REN AN, Mission, pp. 426, 427.
'2 Among all the museums of Europe the richest in these anthropoid sarcophagi is
that of the Louvre, thanks to the missions of MM. Key and Renan ; but there are
also fine examples from the Syrian coast in the British Museum and at Constanti-
nople (REINACH, Catalogue du Musee imperial if Antiqitith de Tchinli Kiosk, 1882,
No. 21). Those in the museum of New York were found in Cyprus.
3 RENAN, Mission, p. 427.
I9& Hi.vroKY OF ART IN PHCF.NICIA AND ITS I )KI'KNDKNCIKS.
inexhaustible of that timber upon which the ancients set the highest
value, the sweet-smelling, incorruptible cedar. But although the
fame of that beautiful wood was not undeserved, the great rains
that wash the whole Syrian coast in winter ended by giving a good
account of the cedar planks of which these coffins were made ;
their shapes, however, may be restored from the nails and clamps
Kir,. 135. — Sarcophagus from Sidon. I.ouvre. Length 7 feet 4 inclio.
by which they were held together ; these have been found in many
cases on the floors of the tomb-chambers. Strong iron rings with
iron rods attached to them and bent into right angles (Fig. 136)'
have also been dug up. The use of these rods may easily be
guessed ; they afforded a good hold for the rings. The ends of
the double rod were driven deeply into the planks which formed
Fl<;. 136. — Iron holdfast and coffin handle. From Kenan.
the coffin sides ; the rest was then bent flat with the planks, the
ring standing out above and acting as a handle by which the coffin
could be lifted or slung.- These rings correspond, in fact, to the
1 The length of the straight part of this double rod gives the thickness of the
coffin wall, viz. 8 inches.
- See the note from the Journal des Fouilles of GAILLARDOT, in the Mission de
Phcnicie, additions and corrections, pp. 866, 867.
SARCOPHAGI AND SKPULCIIKAL FUKNITURK. 199
blocks of marble which stand out from most of the anthropoid
sarcophagi.
The Phoenicians were not content with thus providing for the
easy management of these heavy coffins. They decorated them
with plaques of metal. At least in the more elaborate examples
the rings were placed in the jaws of lions' heads, many of which in
bronze more or less oxidized have been found in the Sidonian
tombs,1 These masks, as may be seen from the example in the
Louvre which we reproduce, are by no means wanting in character
(Fig. 137). We are enabled to restore the whole of these ar-
rangements by the help of the sarcophagi of the Greek and Roman
period, in which they were imitated in stone (Fig. 138). In these
the lions' heads are connected one with another by heavy garlands
bound about with ribbons. This ornament may have been founded
on reality. The handles of the wooden coffins may have been
wreathed by garlands of real leaves and flowers during the funeral
ceremonies.3
We are inclined to believe that the use of these decorated
wooden coffins dates from a fairly remote epoch — from that of the
Persian domination at least. There is, in the first place, the sug-
gestive fact that under the Romans and the last of the Seleucicls
the type was reproduced in a material different from that first
employed ; such transpositions are always an affair of time. The
bronze masks were certainly the originals of those carved by the
decorators of the stone sarcophagi ; in style they are broader and
simpler than the copies, which are always commonplace in exe-
cution. When the tomb-chamber from which the best examples
of these masks now in the Lquvre were brought was first pene-
trated, the four masks it contained were found on the floor, near
one wall of the chamber, and laid one within the other ; the rings
and nails were lying in an opposite corner. Such an arrangement
was certainly not the work of treasure-seekers and tomb-breakers.
Wherever these gentry went they left evident traces of the pre-
cipitation with which they carried out their work of pillage and
1 The Louvre possesses several of these masks, the fruit of M. Peretie's excava-
tions and of those of M. Renan. There are as many in the collection of M. Louis
le Clercq, and for every specimen spared by the rust hundreds must have perished.
M. Renan tells us that most of the sepulchres of Sidon are very damp (Mission,
p. 867).
2 This is an ingenious and probable suggestion of M. GAILLARDOT'S (Mission de
Ph'enicie, p. 867).
2oo HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
destruction. Hut if we suppose that after a few hundreds of years
t )inhs belonging to extinct families were reopened for use a second
time, the state in which this chamber was found is to be readily
explained. The slow action of the centuries had reduced the
cedar planks to dust; the ironwork had fallen to the ground, and
I-'K.. 137. — Lion's mask. Uron/e. Louvre. Diameter 22 inches.
the new visitors to the tomb collected it together with all that
was left of the bodies of the first proprietors of the sepulchre.
As they refrained from carrying off the bronze ornaments, we may
suppose that they treated those remains with respect and gave them
a new asylum before they prepared the chamber for the reception
VOL. I.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 203
of its new occupant.1 We may guess that the evidence thus
brought under their eyes of the comparative inability of cedar
coffins to resist the climate of these hypogea, determined the
Phoenicians to abandon their use and to return to stone sarcophagi,
on which, however, they took care to reproduce the ornamental
details of the cases in which the great princes of independent
Phoenicia had been put to their rest.
The Phoenicians did not burn their dead. The few traces of
cremation which have been encountered in the cemeteries belong
o
evidently to the classic decadence. The explorer is soon convinced
of this by the shapes and sizes of the graves, coffins, and sarcophagi,
which are always governed by the proportions of the intact human
body. None of the skeletons discovered, whether whole or in
fragments, show any trace of the action of fire. The funerary
furniture has exactly the same character as with the Egyptians and
Chaldaeans ; as in the tombs of these two peoples the objects of
which that garnishing is made up are partly arranged round the
walls of the chamber, partly placed on the body itself. Thus we
often find set up against the wall those perfume phials which, in
most cases, are identical in shape with the Greek alabastron ; '-
these are of glass, of terra-cotta, and sometimes, but not often, of
oriental alabaster. One of the latter material was brought from
Sidon by M. Renan (Fig. 139) ;3 it is shaped carefully, and highly
polished. A few ivory ones, very delicately shaped, have also been
found.
The presence of these perfume vases in tombs is to be explained
by man's natural desire to retard, or at least to hide, the decom-
position of the body. Vague hopes and superstitious fears led
him to deposit idols and amulets of every kind beside the dead,
who were then placed after death under the protection of the gods
whom they had adored during life. Mysterious symbols were
scattered broadcast over the walls and floors of the tomb, each one
of which might attract the attention and wake the sympathy of
1 According to those who explored it, this particular tomb contained nothing
but the bronze masks and the ironwork of which we have spoken, but in many
chambers in the same neighbourhood the stone coffers, with carved masks and
garlands which mark the period of the decadence, were found (Mission de P/icnicie,
p. 866.)
2 In a tomb close to the Mugharet-Abloun thirty of these bottles were found
ranged against the wall.
3 Mission, p. 432.
204 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
some tutelary deity. All this points to a set of ideas analogous to
those we described in our study of the Egyptian tomb and of the
JM<;. 139. — Alalm^tron. Louvre. Actual size.
statuettes which were deposited in it in thousands;1 but in
Phoenicia these ideas were neither so precise nor so profoundly
1 Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. chap. iii.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE.
205
felt as in Egypt. The Phoenicians were without the speculative
genius ; a nation of merchants, they were occupied with the affairs
of this world rather than with those of the next.
We shall have to return to the Phoenician terra-cottas to examine
their style and fact 'ure ; at present we must be content with point-
ing out their sepulchral character, and indicating their principal
subjects. Among those which compose the rich collection in the
Louvre there are some, no doubt, from temples, where they must
have arrived as votive offerings ; but all those archaeologists who
have a personal knowledge of Phoenicia are agreed that in the
main these objects come from the cemeteries.1
FIG. 140. — Baal-Hammon. Terra-cotta. Louvre. Height 4! inches.
They all appear to be figures of gods. Among others have
been recognized Baal-Hammon, sitting on his throne between two
rams2 (Fig. 140) ; Bes, whose image was in Egypt an emblem of
1 HEUZEY, Catalogue des Figurines antiques de Terre cuite du Musce du Louvre,
1882, pp. 55, 67. 77. REXAN, Mission, pp. 461, 475, 476, 484. M. PERETIE
Chancellor to the French Consulate at Beyrout, has been exploring in Phoenicia for
the last forty years, and it is mainly by excavation in the cemeteries that he has
succeeded in forming his rich collection. As M. Heuzey remarks, the good con-
dition of most of the terra-cottas which have come to the Louvre from M. Peretie
is enough to prove that those figures belong to the class of objects to which the
tomb gave a comparatively secure shelter.
2 HEUZEY, Catalogue, Phcnicie, 190. DE LONGPERIER, Musce ATapolcon III.,
pi. xxiii. Fig. 3. We have already reproduced (Fig. 25) a much better example of
the same type, of which, however, the exact provenance is unknown ; the specimen
here figured was found in Northern Phoenicia, near Tortosa.
206 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
joy, and was therefore associated in tombs, and especially on the
pillows found in tombs, with the idea of a resurrection. He was
also represented as guardian of one of the pylons of the infernal
regions (Fig. 2I).1 The pigmy-god, a near relation of Bes, is
encountered no less frequently (Fig. 22). To show how great
a popularity Bes enjoyed in the matter of these sepulchral figures,
we may quote a monument that comes from Beyrout, a scarab in
glazed earthenware, in which the forms of the god and the sacred
insect are actually blended together (Fig. 141). " If we hold this
little object at a particular angle we distinctly see the grimacing
face with its tongue thrust out ; the joints of the beetle's armour form
the feather crown, which is an attribute of the Egyptian Bes.
Some hieroglyphs are carved on the flat underside, but as in so
FIG. 141. — Scarab, with face of Bes. Louvre. -
many of the Phoenician imitations, they have no sense. It is well
known that the image of Ptah in a state of embryo, which resembles
Bes in more than one respect, often carries on its head a represen-
tation of the insect so constantly associated in Egyptian symbolism
with the god of Memphis."
The distinctive characteristics of the various goddesses who were
adored in Syria are as yet so far from being well established that
we cannot attempt even to propose a name for each of the types of
which the group of female divinities is composed. We are tempted
to recognize an Astarte in the divinity, sometimes enthroned
1 T. DE ROUGE, Notice des Monuments Egyptiens, 1873, p. 143. MARIETTE,
La Galerie de PEgypte andcnne au Trocadero, 1878, p. 116, cf. p. 10. See also
HEUZF.Y, Catalogue, pp. 73-80.
2 See HEUZEY, Catalogue des Figurines antiques de Terre cuite, plate viii. Fig. 3.
3 HEUZEY, Catalogue, P/icnici'e, No. 206.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 207
(Fig. 20), sometimes standing (Fig. 142), who presses a dove against
her breast; before being consecrated to the Greek Aphrodite the
dove was the special property of some oriental deities and
especially of the Syrian Astarte.1 We have more difficulty in
1 The dove, said the Greeks, had been consecrated to Aphrodite ever since
the beginning of time, on account of its warm and amorous temperament (APOL-
LODORUS, quoted by the scholiast of Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut, iii. 593) ; but
of all the Greek goddesses Aphrodite was the one to keep the most strongly marked
traces of her Oriental origin. Greece made the fair goddess her own entirely by
the beauty which her artists began to give her at the end of the fifth century ; her
worship and her attributes preserved to the last much of their Oriental character.
To this the Greeks themselves wrere quite alive, as we may see from a myth which,
in spite of its neglect by poetry and art, has nevertheless a very real importance for
the historian ; I mean the story given by HYGIXUS (Fabultz, 197). An egg, they
say, fell from the sky into the River Euphrates ; fishes carried it to the bank, a dove
sat upon it and hatched Aphrodite ! By this tradition a connection was established
between the goddess born on the banks of the Euphrates, who was the prototype
of Aphrodite, and the dove. We cannot point to any texts or monuments which
prove that the dove was consecrated to one of those goddesses of fertility who were
adored under various names by the eastern Shemites, but so far as it concerns the
Syrian goddesses, who were no more than the daughters of those of Chaldasa and
Assyria, the fact is proved. It was demonstrated long ago that the Semiramis, whose
career is given by DIODORUS (II. iv. 20), was not a human personage, but a divinity
whose legend had been transferred, after a fashion that was common enough in such
cases, to a mortal heroine (FR. LEXORMAXT, La Legende de Shniramis, a paper
presented to the Academic de Belgique, January 8, 1872). Several authors declare
that Semiramis was worshipped as a goddess both in the valley of the Euphrates
and in Syria, and particularly at Ascalon and Hierapolis (ATHENAGORAS, Legatio pro
Christianis, 26; LUCIAN, De dea Syria, 14 and 33 ; DIODORUS, II. xx. 2) ; the tie
by which she is attached in legend to Derceto, the great goddess of Ascalcn, shows
that Semiramis was no more than one form of the type adored under different names
by all the Shemitic tribes of the interior and of the coast ; and we know that the
dove was especially consecrated to that Derceto-Semiramis of Ascalon and Northern
Syria. According to Diodorus, Semiramis was nursed by doves, and at her death
was changed into a dove ; the very word Semiramis, according to Ctesias, meant
dove in the language of the country. In the temple of Hierapolis they showed
Lucian a statue which passed for that of Semiramis ; a golden dove was perched
upon its head. Finally, upon the coins struck at Ascalon in the time of the Roman
emperors, we find a goddess, Derceto or Semiramis, who has a dove sometimes
beside her, sometimes on her open hand (ECKHEL, Doctrina Nummorum Veterum,
vol. iii. p. 445). The attribution of the dove to the Astarte of Syria and Paphos
is, if possible, still better attested. The poets make frequent allusion to it (TIBULLUS,
I. viii. 17 ; MARTIAL, VIII. xxviii. 13). ATHENVEUS (x. 51) speaks of the doves of
Eryx, and the tradition he gives us implies a narrow connection between them and
the Astarte who was worshipped in Sicily. Finally, both in Phoenicia and in Cyprus
we find the dove placed in the hands of all those female figures in which archaso-
logists agree in recognising either the images of the goddess herself or those of
her priestesses.
2oS HISTORV OF ART ix PIUEXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
finding a plausible appellation for some other statuettes of which
the physiognomy is very peculiar. These are, as a rule, seated
and draped in a robe falling to the feet. The head-dress, which
seems to be an exaggerated version of the Egyptian coiffure, forms
a round and ample mass on each side of the forehead. The left
FIG. 142.— Astarte. Terra-cotta. Louvre.
Height 104 inches.
Fit;. 143. — Mother goddess. Terra-
cotta. Louvre.
arm hangs down by the side, the right is bent so that the hand
rests upon the stomach, which by its abnormal salience seems to
suggest a state of pregnancy (Fig. 143). J Statuettes of this type
are continually found in Cyprus. They are closely connected with
1 HEUZEY, Catalogue^ Phenicie, Nos. 192-194.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 209
those representing the same woman with a child in her breast, of
which more than one example has been furnished by the Cypriot
tombs, although none have yet been encountered on the Syrian
coast (Fig. 144).
The presence of these nurses and mother-goddesses in the tombs
is not surprising. Their deposit in such places was universal
in the antique world. The connection of ideas is obvious. By
placing in the sepulchre figures of those divinities who presided
over the birth and early years of every living being, who watched
over the fertility of nature and her incessant renewal, a sort of
FIG. 144. — Mother goddess. Terra-cotta. Louvre.1
emblematic promise was held out to its tenant of a future and
immortal life.
Another object often found in the cemeteries is a terra-cotta
chariot drawn by two or four horses, and occupied by one or more
persons (Fig. 145). We must be on our guard against looking upon
these as toys or decorative objects. They embody an allusion to
the state and circumstance which, after surrounding the occupant
during life, was supposed to follow him in his supreme migration.
Little as we know about the customs and beliefs of the Phoenicians,
1 HKUZEY, Figurines, plate vi. fig. 6.
VOL. I. E i;
2io HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
it is difficult to refuse our assent to this explanation now that the
same subject has been found developed on the principal face of the
remarkable Pruenician sarcophagus of Amathus, in a bas-relief
which recalls the style of these terra-cottas in spite of its general
Assyrian character.1 The tradition passed from the East, with
many others, into Etruria, where chariots both for war and peace
Tu;, 145. — Terra-cotta cliariut. Louvre. Height 8 inches.
are often figured on sepulchral monuments. There we even find
them led by the genii of death, who escort them to the gates of the
infernal regions.2 In this the Etruscans thrust ideas baldly forward
1 We reproduce this sarcophagus on a future page.
'-' Annali dell Institute Archeologico, 1879, p. 299 j article by GUST. KORTE, entitled :
Vasi Etruschi con Rappresentanze Relative all' Inferno. See also plates iv. and v. in
vol. xi. of the Alonimenti.
SARCOPHAGI AND SEPULCHRAL FURNITURE. 2 1 1
which were gently hinted at in earlier representations ; their first
germ existed in our little Phoenician chariots of terra-cotta.1
Gods, goddesses, chariots, all these terra-cotta figures, embellished
here and there with touches of colour, are the peculiar property of
Phoenicia ; but side by side with them, in the cemeteries on the
coast, we find amulets and statuettes of glazed earthenware, or
" Egyptian fayence." Was this fayence imported from Egypt or
made in the workshops of Tyre or Sidon ? This question will have
to be answered at length elsewhere ; here we must be content with
stating the fact that many of the Phoenician dead had figures of the
jackal-headed Anubis and other Egyptian objects of the same class,
such as scarabs, symbolic eyes, &c., placed with them in their
tombs. Among the booty he won from Sidonian tomb-chambers
M. Renan mentions a small silver statuette of Anher or Onouris
(Nofre-toum) ; another of the same material of the ram-headed
god Chnouphis; a third, in blue fayence, of the god Amen. He
found necklaces made of separate pieces, each representing either
a god or some sacred animal of Egypt.2 One might almost fancy
oneself in Egypt ; but on account, no doubt, of the greater dampness
of the soil, the white, green, and blue enamels have not kept their
lustre so well as in that country. They are often half destroyed,
and even where the surface still remains the tints have faded.
Another custom borrowed from Egypt by Phoenicia was that of
placing leaves of gold over all the openings in the body, and
especially over the eyes. These golden spectacles are by no
means rare in Phoenicia.3 Golden masks have also been found
there. M. Louis le Clercq has two in his collection, they are
about half life size ; one reproduces the features of a woman, the
other those of a bearded man.
Of all the objects we have enumerated, some, like the leaves
of gold and the bottles of perfume, were meant to ward off the final
dissolution of the corpse; others, like the amulets and statuettes,
were intended to insure for the dead, by their magic virtues,
a protection against the terrible but unknown dangers of the
1 HEUZEY, Catalogue, pp. 65, 66.
2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 487, 488. The small objects found at Byblos were of the
same character (Mission, p. 214). In the collection of M. Louis le Clercq, which
is in some respects richer in Phoenician antiquities even than that of the Louvre,
a whole case is filled with small objects of Assyrian earthenware — statuettes, scarabs
amulets — all of which were found in Syria.
3 KENAN, Mission, pp. 421, 422.
212 HISTORY OF ART IN PIXF.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
subterranean world. As a natural effect of the beliefs which
su<r"'ested these arrangements, the piety of relations led them to
deposit in the grave such instruments of daily life as the defunct
had been in the habit of using and the jewels with which he had
adorned his person.1
Lamps are continually found. They were left burning no doubt
when the tomb was closed. Small amphone held, we may guess,
a supply of water.- Women were entombed with their bracelets,
with the rings of bron/e and silver which they wore upon their
ankles, with their necklaces, ear-rings and finger-rings, with the
metal mirrors before which they had so often plaited their long
tresses, and the pencil they had used to heighten the shadows
about their eyes. Boxes, cups, and vases filled with various
cosmetics completed the battery of the female toilet.
I-' ic. 146. — Silver ling, with scarab in agate. Actual size. From Kenan.
Beside the corpse of a man was placed his seal, often mounted
in a silver ring (Fig. 146).' It is curious that in the long and
carefully compiled list of objects found during a course of ex-
cavations in the necropolis of Sidon extending over two years,
we do not find a single weapon of any kind or a fragment of one.
In the case of every other people by whom tombs were filled with
these relics of the life passed above, swords and lances, shields
and helmets, are encountered at every step. The peculiarity can
only be explained by the national character and habits of the
Phoenicians. They were a people of merchants and not of
1 See GAILLARDOT, Journal des Fouilles, in the Mission de Phcnide, pp. 469, 473,
478, &c., and the list of objects found in the necropolis of Sai'da, classed by tombs.
* RF.N.\N, .1 /».«<?«, p. 473.
"• Ibid. pp. 477, 478, and 488, 489.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHCENICIA. 2 1
warriors ; the splendid weapons they made were for sale and
export, not for use by themselves, except in the most strict
defensive ; the wealth and power on which they so prided
themselves were not conquered at the point of the sword.
§4. — The Phoenician Tomb away from Phoenicia.
We began by studying, in all necessary detail, the Phoenician
tomb as we find it within the borders of Phoenicia itself, at Gebal
at Tyre, and at Sidon. But the Phoenicians travelled so much?
they lived and died so often outside their own boundaries, that
their bones are to be found scattered on every shore of the
Mediterranean. Where, indeed, should we fail to encounter their
sepulchres, had it not been for the number destroyed, usurped, or
put to other uses during the great movement of Graco-Roman
civilization ? It is only by a happy accident that we sometimes
come upon one of those isolated graves in which some sailor
overtaken by death during a distant expedition has been hastily
interred. We can hardly hope to discover many more of the
narrow grave-yards which lay about those distant ports where a
few merchants kept open shop for Celts, Africans, or Ligurians,
or where a few soldiers mounted guard over a depot of provisions ;
and yet it was, perhaps, in one of these outpost cemeteries that
the Corsican sarcophagus with its carved head was found.
The case of a city founded by Phoenicia in a country into
which her influence had deeply penetrated was rather different.
Wherever her supremacy was of long duration and her people
formed a considerable proportion of the inhabitants, the cemeteries
were too large to disappear without leaving a trace behind ; and
this remark applies to places much smaller than Carthage, the
great city which grew to be so much more powerful and populous
than her parent state. From various circumstances it resulted
that some of these cemeteries in the East and West of Europe
remained unknown and unexplored down to our own day, so that
their treasures were far better guarded than those of the mother
country. We may therefore learn a great deal from visits to
burial-places in which none but people vastly inferior in wealth
and dignity to the merchant princes of Tyre and Sidon had been
entombed. These provincial grave-yards, as we may call them,
214 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
have many pleasant surprises for the archaeologist ; in them he
will sometimes encounter complete series of monuments which are
entirely absent from the tombs of Phoenicia. Thus we find that
objects of earthenware, so uncommon on the Tyrian coast, abound
in the tombs of Cyprus, while those of Sardinia have furnished a
series of scarabs richer and more varied than any we could pos-
sibly form from those found in graves on the main shore of the
Mediterranean.
We need look for no additions to our stores from Bckaa or
Ccele-Syria.1 Down to the Roman epoch the whole of this region
was in a very rude and primitive state." According to Strabo,y it
was entirely given over to robbers and savages. The trade route
skirted it on the north and the south, but the Phoenicians did not
penetrate within the range. The lower valley of the Orontes and
the oasis of Damascus were in the same condition. Over the
whole of that district another people, another civilization, and
another set of customs were to be encountered. Damascus is
certainly one of the oldest cities in the world, and close beside it
rise the rocky escarpments of the Djebel Kasioum. If that mountain
had been in Phoenicia its sides would have been fitted writh
sepulchral chambers, but as it is, not a single vestige of such a
thing is to be found.4 It was, in fact, on the sea that the doors
and windows of Phoenicia opened, and it is on that side, on the
coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, that we must look for
points of comparison and for supplements to the narrow information
we can draw from the parent state itself.
First of all we must cross over to Cyprus, which was certainly
the earliest colony of the Phoenicians. During many centuries
they maintained themselves in the island in great force, at least
over all its southern half. Their tombs are consequently very
numerous, and the only difficulty is to distinguish them from those
of the Greeks, who also colonized Cyprus at a very remote period,
and ended by gaining the upper hand after living there in contact
with the Phoenicians for many centuries. Two points have to
1 The only rock-cut cemetery in the whole of this region, that of Bereitan, near
Baalbek, is of slight interest. Nothing but troughs of simple form and without
ornament is to be found in it (DE SAULCY, Voyage aittour dc la J\fer morte, plates
liv. and Iv.
2 REXAN, Mission, p. 836. ''' STRABO, XVI. ii. 18.
4 According to Gaillardot (RENAN, Afissiou, p. 350).
THE PHCENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA. 215
be considered in attempting to make the distinction. In the first
place we can only look for Phoenician sepulchres in that part of
the island in which the language, religion, and political supremacy
of Phoenicia survived to the time of Alexander ; secondly, we
shall only accept as Phoenician such tombs as, by their arrange-
ment and the objects found in them, recall those we have
examined on the Syrian coast, and reveal the nationality of their
first proprietors.
Kition, on the southern coast, remained a thoroughly Syrian
town down to a very late date. This we gather from the
numerous Phoenician texts found on its side, or in its immediate
neighbourhood. Of these there are not less than seventy-eight,
and a certain number are funerary in their character.1 Think, too,
for a moment of what the modern successor of Kition is called;
it is called Larnaca, and the most probable derivation of the name
is from the Greek \apva!;, a box or coffer ; ta larnaca would mean
"the sarcophagi " ; and we may suppose that the name was given
to the town in the middle ages, from the great number of those
stone troughs which lay about its site, and were encountered
whenever ground was broken. Almost all these remains have
disappeared. Larnaca has never ceased to be what is called an
important city in Turkey, that is to say a city with a population
to be counted by thousands. Masons and lime-burners have
reduced to powder every block of marble or limestone on which
they could lay their hands ; and yet the excavations made in the
environs of Larnaca have laid bare the Phoenician sepulchres at
more than one point. We are told that an anthropoid sarco-
phagus was found in one of them,2 and that the same chamber
contained some alabaster vases, upon one of which a short
Phoenician inscription was still decipherable (Fig. 147). There
were, too, some painted terra-cotta vases, in the decoration of
which no motives had been employed but those we have already
encountered in Assyria and Phoenicia.3
But most of the tombs opened at Larnaca belong to the Grceco-
Roman period. The richest necropolis in really ancient tombs is
that of Idalion, where one of the most famous sanctuaries of that
1 Corpus Inscr. Scmit. part i. Nos. 10-87.
2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 53.
3 For the appearance presented by these chambers see the vignette given by
CESNOLA, p. 53.
?.\6 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKF.MCIA AND ITS DKI-KNUKNCIKS.
Astarte who in later years became the Aphrodite and Venus of the
classic poets was situated. Kven the name of Idalion has been pre-
served in that of the modern village of DalL Cesnola tells us that he
explored about fifteen thousand tombs in the canton of Dali alone,1
and that he found many precious objects in them. But his ex-
cavations went on at many points at once ; he could not be every-
where,and many of them were supervised by native foremen. Several
of these men had gathered no little experience, and had a keen
scent for monuments of value ; they understood thoroughly how to
sound the rock and to follow a vein until it was exhausted ; but
they troubled themselves little enough with the arrangement of the
tombs into which they penetrated, and even had they been willing
they were unable to take sections or to draw a plan. General di
.. 147.— Alabaster va^es. From Kiticm.-
Cesnola was prevented by his very eagerness as an archaeologist
from supplementing the ignorance of his agents. It would have
been easy for him to serve his apprenticeship as draughtsman and
surveyor on the ground itself, but his keenness for new discoveries,
the journeys he made about the island in every direction, and the
number of digging campaigns he carried on at once in cantons far
removed from each other, left him no leisure for anything of the
kind. We owe too much to his energy to have any desire to
quarrel with it ; General di Cesnola has by himself disinterred
more monuments of ancient art in Cyprus than all the other ex-
plorers put together ; with the comparatively feeble resources of a
private individual, he has brought to light hundreds of figures and
thousands of vases and jewels, while the English Government,
1 Cyprus, p. 64. - From CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 54.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA. 217
which has now been for five years absolute master of the island,
has brought nothing from it of any importance.1 We may, how-
ever, be allowed to express our regret that to his other services
Cesnola has not added that of giving us plans, sections, and
elevations of the tombs and other civil or religious edifices he
was the first to explore. The few figures of this class which are
sprinkled at rare intervals over his pages look too much as if they
had been compiled from memory.2 The absence of documents
of this kind is sure to lead to more than one misapprehension.
But vague as it is we must now endeavour to make the best
use we can of Cesnola's narrative and of such other sources of
information as are open to us.
The tombs in the oldest part of the Idaliot necropolis are oven-
shaped. Their width varies from six to ten feet, their height from
about four feet to six feet, and their depth from five feet one inch
to eight feet.3 As a rule, a short and narrow corridor leads from
the door to the interior. When the earth in which the tombs are
dug is loose, their walls are solidified by a lining of mixed clay
and chopped straw ; but where the tomb is excavated in the rock
this precaution is dispensed with. On three sides of the chamber
there is a ledge about thirty-two inches high, upon which the
corpses were laid. Of these there were sometimes only one or
two, sometimes as many as five or six. Each sepulchre appears
to have served a single family. Fig. 148 shows how the bodies
were arranged in a tomb for three persons ; those on the right
and left were always laid with their heads to the door. The vases
and other items of sepulchral furniture were placed sometimes on
the ledge, sometimes at a lower level, in the space left free in the
1 Upon the life and discoveries of General di Cesnola, see the second of my
articles on the Island of Cyprus in the Revue des deux Mondes (December i, 1878,
February i, and May 15, 1879). They are entitled: Llle de Cypre, son role dans
V Histoire. In the same papers many facts relative to the other explorers who,
between the years 1862 and 1876, have revealed Cypriot art to western archaeology,
will be found. It will here suffice to enumerate the names of MM. Lang, Sandwith,
de Maricourt, de Vogue, Duthoit, Guillaume Rey, Tiburce, Pie'ridis, and Georgio
Colonna Ceccaldi.
2 Look, for instance, at the figures on pages 66 and 67. The transverse section
does not agree with the plan. The latter, moreover, has no references, neither does
it agree in every respect with the text in which it is in framed.
3 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 66. CECCALDI, Monuments antiques de Chypre, p. 35.
SANDWITH, On the Different StyJes of Pottery found in Ancient Tombs in the Island
of Cyprus (Arch(Polo°ia, vol. xlv. 1877, pp. 127-142).
VOL. I. F F
21 S HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NHTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
centre of the chamber. In some cases an earthenware dish
turned upside down was placed pillow-wise under the head.
There was no trace of coffins, and the tomb was closed by a small
slab fitted into the opening.
The oldest of all these tombs, according- to Cesnola, are those
he opened in that part of the cemetery which lies near the village
of Alambra.1 They represent the earliest period in the civilization
of the island. This seems to be proved by the extreme rudeness
of the objects found, objects of earthenware decorated entirely
with geometric patterns, incised and not painted figures, so coarsely
modelled with the thumb as to be thoroughly grotesque. Among
Flu. 14$. — 1'lan of a tomb at Dali. From Cesnola.
these figures and earthen vessels many bronze objects were also
found, fragments of blades, short-swords, knives, hatchets, tools,
mirrors, needles, and round cups. And, we are told, a constant
relation could be traced between the character of the statuettes
and the bronze instruments by which they were accompanied.
Arms were found in the same tombs as figures of horsemen, of
charioteers, or of foot-soldiers with shield and helmet (Fig. i^g
and Plate II.) ; on the other hand, whenever mirrors, needles, and
long hair-pins were encountered, they were sure to be accompanied
by images of that mother-goddess, who is figured sometimes with
her hands on her breasts, sometimes with them laid on her
1 CKSNOI.A, Cyprus, \>. 87.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA.
2 19
stomach (Fig. 150). This figure seems to have been reserved for
the tombs of women, while those of warriors were placed by the
coffins of men.1
Some tombs, like those of Alambra, from their furnishing and
general arrangement and from the more advanced artistic style of
the objects found in them, may be ascribed to a later date. The
ornament is still carried out in lines, but is painted as well as
engraved, and skilfully-made trinkets are found as well as bronze
weapons.2 Metal cups, too, have been found decorated with
concentric zones round a central rosette or medallion.3
FIG. 149. — Terra-cotta statuette.
Cyprus.4
FIG. 150. — Terra-cotta statuette.
Cyprus.4
We have no hesitation in recognizing in all these tombs,
whether the pottery they contain is incised or painted, those of
Phoenicians established in the island, or at least of a population
which received from them the first elements of political life. One
of the vases ornamented with geometrical desiens bears a
<-* O
Phoenician epigraph, which, we are told by General di Cesnola,
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 93. Upon the cemetery at Alambra see also FROHNER,
preface to the Catalogue de la Collection Bar re (4to, 1878).
2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, pp. 68-79, ar"d plates i. and ii.
3 Ibid. p. 77, and G. COLONNA CECCALDI, Monuments antiques da Chypre,
chapter iii.
4 Drawn by Benedite from the originals in the Feuardent collection.
22O HISTORY ov ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
was engraved before the vase was fired.1 Metal cups with figures
cut upon them are among those objects whose Phoenician origin
is best established. In the oldest of these tombs we find types
already encountered in Syria, such as horsemen and chariots in
terra-cotta. The naked deity with large hips, in which archaeolo-
gists agree to recognize a goddess of generation, is certainly of
Chakkean origin,2 and who but the Phoenicians could have carried
her to Cyprus ? The very plan of the tomb is identical with that
of some burial-places we have noticed at Amrit, Tyre, and Sidon.
Before he knew anything of the discoveries in Cyprus, Gaillardot
came to the conclusion that the oldest of the Sidonian tombs
were those in which a chamber of moderate size had a ledge
across the back of it. On that ledge, or on the floor, the bodies
were placed without coffins of any kind.^
None of these primitive tombs were found in a virgin state in
Phoenicia itself; they had all been pillaged and used a second
time ; but the Cypriot hills had guarded their deposits better than
the rocks of the Syrian coast. The necropolis of Alambra
furnished the oldest Phoenician sepulchres which have yet been
discovered ; we should not be astonished were it proved that they
date from the first settlement of Sidonian colonists in the island,
before the beginning of the eleventh century B.C. Other parts of
the cemetery of Dali, those in which the painted vases and metal
cups have been found, must also be very ancient ; on these objects
no trace is to be discovered of the influence which Greek art
began to exercise over Phoenician industry towards the seventh
or sixth century.
East and north-east of Dali and nearer to Larnaca lies the
village of Athieno, in the neighbourhood of which a fane almost
as celebrated as that of Idalion, namely, the temple of Golgos, is
supposed to have stood.4 But whether Golgos was at Athieno
. ' CKSNOLA, Cyprus, p. 68 : " Vase with Phoenician inscription burnt in on the clay."
2 History of Art in Chaldiea and Assyria, vol. i. p. 83 and fig. 16, vol. ii.
p. 92 and figs. 41, 4 2. 3 REN AN, Mission de PJieniae,^pp. 481 and 483.
4 This site was proposed by M. DE Vooi'E, and accepted by M. KIEPERT for
his excellent map of the island (New and Original Map of the Island of Cyprus,
to the scale of i 400,000 ; Berlin, 1878, Dietrich Reimer). It has been disputed
by M. RICHARD NEUBAUER in a paper entitled : Der angebliche Aphrodite-tempel zu
Golgoi und die daselbst gefundenen Inschriften in Kyprischen Schrift (in the Com-
mentationes philologies in honorem Theodori Mommseni, i vol. 8vo, p. 173).
M. Neubauer attempts to show that Golgos was only a suburb of Paphos, and he
supports his idea with texts, some of which appear to deserve serious attention.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA. 221
or elsewhere is not of much importance to us at present. What
is certain is that in a canton which formed part of the Phoenician
kingdom of Kition there was a centre of population which kept
its importance through many long centuries. None of the tombs
seem to belong to a period so remote as the sepulchres of Dali ; at
Athieno the bodies were, as a rule, buried in sarcophagi,
some of which were adorned with elaborate sculptures, and these
sculptures illustrate some of the favourite myths of the Greek
poets, such as the murder of Medusa by Perseus, and the birth of
Chrysaor.1 But although the ideas and arts of Greece are to
be traced to the subjects and execution of these carved pictures,
although a Greek inscription may here and there be found upon
them (Fig. 54), and although the majority may be no earlier in
date than the sixth or even the fifth century B.C., it is none the
less true that all these sarcophagi and the steles by which they
are accompanied bear signs of Phoenician influence. Upon most
of the steles — which stood, as a rule, in front of the two narrow
faces of the sarcophagus 2 — the winged globe, sometimes of the
Egyptian type, sometimes of the form peculiar to Phoenicia,
appears just below the crowning ornament.3 This ornament
consists sometimes of two lions or sphinxes placed back to back
(Figs. 54 and 151), sometimes of one of those curious and
complex capitals of which we have already figured more than one
specimen (Figs. 51, 52, 53). Sometimes the sphinxes are used in
the decoration of these capitals. The way they are introduced
may be seen in our reproduction of one of the steles, by which
the fine sarcophagus already mentioned was accompanied (Fig.
1 52).* At each angle of the lid of this sarcophagus there is a
lion couchant. We have already noticed the frequent use made
of these lions and sphinxes in the decoration of Phoenician
buildings, motives which came to Phoenicia from Egypt by way
of Assyria, and underwent certain modifications on the way. In
its own way this stele is one of the most careful works that the
Phoenicians have left us ; it is also one of the best preserved.
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, pp. I'op-uy and plate x. G. COLONNA CECCALDI, Monu-
ments antiques de Chypre, pp. 65-74 and plate vi.
2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 114.
3 Ibid. p. 109.
4 The knotted ribbon, painted in red, which hangs about the stele reproduced in
our Fig. 151 should be noticed.
222 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
The workmanship is Greek, but the motive is thoroughly oriental.
As a last proof of the close connection between Phoenicia and the
occupants of these tombs, in one of them a silver patera with
figures upon it has been found ; it is beyond a doubt the work
of some artisan of Tyre or Sidon.1
Were these decorated steles always used as pendents to stone
sarcophagi ? Were they always shut up in the tomb chamber, or
were they sometimes set up above the grave so that at least their
upper part was visible above the ground and acted as a sign like
the pyramid in Phoenicia proper ? On these points Cesnola tells
us nothing. Neither does he satisfy our curiosity as to the
necropolis of Amathus.2 That town was on the southern coasts,
and its situation, its myths, the part it played in history, its worship
of Astarte, and the monuments that have been found in it, all
combine to convince us that Amathus was one of those towns in
which the influence of their Phoenician founders endured the
longest.15 As at Golgos and Idalion, most of the tombs belong to
the decadence, but careful excavation soon brought to light a group
of sepulchres, finer and more carefully constructed, according to
General di Cesnola, than any others he found in the island. They
are at the foot of the inclosure and outside it in -a narrow valley
to the north-west of the low hill upon which the town was built.
They are about a hundred in number, and represent, in all
probability, the burying-place of the kings and high priests of
Amathus. They are now covered with earth to a depth varying
between forty and fifty-four feet, and are built, paved, and roofed
with large stones set in regular courses. Some of the stones
are as much as twenty feet long by five feet nine inches wide
and three feet four inches deep. Some of the tombs have flat
(Fig. 153), others ridge (Fig. 154) roofs ; all are paved with great
slabs of limestone. Some have one, others two, chambers ; while
there are four, at least, in which the arrangement shown in our
Fig. 155 has been followed. These sepulchres must have been
originally built on the surface of the ground at the bottom of the
valley, and then, after the corpses were put in place, deliberately
buried in earth in order to render access more difficult. The
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, plate xi. 2 Ibid. pp. 255-283.
3 The very name of the town, which lias only come down to us in its Greek form
of Ap.a@ov<;, is, perhaps, Semitic in its origin, and identical with that of Hamath, the
Syrian city in the Valley of the Orontes.
FIG. 151. — Cypriot stele. Limestone. Height 33 inches. Metropolitan Museum of New York.
FIG. 152-Cypriot stele. Metropolitan Museum of New York. it 4
VOL. I.
inc
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKKNICIA.
work thus begun by their constructors was finished by the rains,
which carried down stones and sancl from the flanks of the neigh-
bouring hills and heaped them upon the necropolis. The deposit
FIG. 153. — Tomb at Amathus. From Cesnola.1
is thickest towards the head of the valley, where the hollow is
deeper and more confined than elsewhere (Fig.
FIG. 154. — Tomb at Amathus. From Cesnola.'
Here all the corpses seem to have been placed in sarcophagi.
The number of the latter varies ; in some chambers only one is to
1 Cyprus, p. 256.
2 I take these details from a letter of General DI CESNOLA'S, who has been good
enough to give us, from his notes and his memory, much of the information for
which we looked in vain in his book. The shafts shown on his page 255 and in our
Fig. 156 form no part of the tombs — they were dug by the explorers in the course
of their search. A young German savant, Dr. Sigismond, who helped to decipher
the Cypriot inscriptions, visited the necropolis in 1875, and met his death by falling
down one of these pits.
228 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
be found, and that placed in the middle of the floor ; in others
there are three — one on the left, another on the right, and a third
opposite to the entrance (Fig. 157). In tombs with two chambers
as many as ten and even fifteen sarcophagi have been encountered.
When there was no room on the floor the last comers were heaped
FIG. 155. — Han of a tomb at Amalhus. From Ccsnola.1
on the first, so that in some cases there were two and three tiers
of coffins.2 In the sarcophagi themselves there was very great
variety. In one tomb was found an anthropoid marble sar-
cophagus, the head on which was apparently female, and a
perfectly plain limestone coffin.3 In one of the four-chambered
FIG. 156. — Section through the ravine at Amathus.
sepulchres, in the centre of the chamber opposite the door, a fine
marble sarcophagus with each of its four faces covered by reliefs
within a richly carved border was found. It was broken into
many pieces, but into pieces which were easily fitted together.
1 Cyprus, p. 260. 2 CESXOLA, Cyprus, pp. 259 and 272.
3 Ibid. pp. 270 and 288.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKKNICIA.
229
The two long sides were carved with a kind of procession ; four
chariots drawn by horses with fan-like plumes upon their heads,
and between the chariots foot-soldiers armed with lances and
round shields, and a couple of horsemen. Upon each of the two
short faces a single figure was repeated four times. At one end
this figure was the naked o-oddess with bent arms and hands
o o
displaying her breasts and about her throat a double necklace ; at
the other the god Bes, recognizable by his feather head-dress,
by his large face, and the deformity of his thickset little person.1
The lid, too, is sumptuously decorated ; 2 at each end of the
central ridge a graceful palmette acts as an acroterion, while
winged sphinxes face each other at the four angles.
FIG. 157. — Interior of a tomb at Amathus. From Cesnola.3
The doorway of the tomb in which this fine monument was
found is surrounded by four grooves (Fig. 158). The height
of the opening is four feet ten inches, the width three feet nine ;
in several more of these tombs we find doorways of the same
dimensions and decorated in the same fashion.4 The opening was
closed by means of a huge and heavy stone which rested against
the jambs.
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, plates xiv. and xv.
2 Ibid. p. 267. The lid, like the body of the coffin, was broken into many pieces.
The drawing which we reproduce farther on, following Cesnola, is almost a restora-
tion, but thanks to the exact symmetry of the design, there is nothing doubtful
about it.
3 Cyprus, p. 282. 4 Ibid. pp. 256 and 270.
230 HISTORY OK ART IN PIIU.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Even from the little we know about it, it is clear that the
necropolis is Phoenician in character. The anthropoid sarco-
phagi borrowed by Phoenicia from Egypt are found in it, and
side by side with them the smooth stone troughs of Sidon ; while
on the only decorated coffin it has yielded we encounter Bes and
I star. Neither is there anything Greek among the objects found
in the tombs ; as on the Syrian coast, these are alabaster bottles,
amulets of Egyptian fayence, terra-cotta statuettes of the naked
goddess, clay vases with geometrical decorations, a wooden box
with bronze incrustations, fragments of a bronze shield decorated
with fights of animals and those of a silver cup with figures upon
it.1 Upon the cup the imitation of Egyptian motives may be
FIG. 158. — Doorway of a tomb at Amathus. From Ce»nola.J
plainly traced ; as for the shield it recalls objects of the same
class found in Assyria.3
We do not think, however, that this assemblage of tombs dates
from a very remote period ; on one of the vases we find an
attempt at representing figures, the figures of two people in a
chariot ; on the sarcophagus with bas-reliefs and still more on
that belonging to the anthropoid class, we can trace the influence
of Greek sculpture. The latest of these tombs can hardly be
earlier than the fifth or even the beginning of the fourth century.
The last type of Cypriot tomb is furnished by those in the
neighbourhood of Nea-Paphos, in the south of the island, in a
region in which religious- rites preserved their marked Oriental
1 CESNOI.A, Cyprus, pp. 275-281, and plates xviii. xix. and xx.
2 Cyprus, p. 260.
3 Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, vol. ii. pp. 330-347, fig. 225.
THE PIICENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKENICIA.
271
and Semitic character down to the last days of paganism. These
monuments have attracted the attention of travellers ever since
the beginning of the century.1 The tombs are hollowed in the
flank of a rocky hill which rises in the centre of the plain and is
crowned by a plateau. Some of them have a series of chambers
FIG. 159. — Plan of a tomb at Nea-Paphos, From Ross.
in the sides of which are cut niches for bodies (Fig. 159).
These are perhaps the oldest. In some more important tombs
we find a very curious arrangement (Figs. 160 and 161). Each
group of chambers is connected with a rectangular court, open to
the sky and surrounded by square shafts and circular columns.
FIG. 160.— Plan of a tomb at Nea-Paphos. From Ross.
The court, the surrounding colonnade, the chambers attached,
and the corridor by which the court is reached, are all cut in the
1 Ross, Reisen nach Cypern, pp. 187-189. Archaologische Zeitung, 1851, plate
xxviii. figs. 3 and 4. POTTIER, Les Hypogees doriques de Nea-Paphos dans Vile
de Cypre {Bulletin de Correspondance h'elleniqne, 1880, pp. 497-505).
2^2 HISTORY OK ART i\ PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIKS.
living rock. Under the colonnade are openings into chambers
surrounded by niches, each niche made to hold a single body. It
has also been thought that platforms for sarcophagi were to be
recognized, but no fragment of coffin or sarcophagus, or of any
sepulchral furniture, has been found in any one of these. hypogea.
This is not surprising, for they have for many centuries afforded
a shelter to the shepherds and herdsmen of the neighbourhood
from the sun and rain ; the ceilings are blackened by the smoke
of their fires. Their comparative architectural magnificence — for
their fa9ades have always been visible — must also have been a
source of danger. They have no inscriptions to show, but what
Fir,. 161. — Courtyard of a toml> at Nea-Taphos. From Ross.
is known of the fame and wealth of the Paphian sanctuary
suggests a very probable explanation of their existence ; they are
most likely the tombs of the high priests who ministered in the
neighbouring temple, and profited by the piety of its visitors.
None of these tombs can be older than the fifth century B.C.
The columns with their capitals and the entablature they support
are Greek in the details of their architecture ; it is the Doric
order, as we find it in Greece. There is even one detail which
seems to hint that these colonnades are later than Alexander ; the
frieze is deeper than the architrave, a proportion which is not, as a
rule, to be met with in buildings anterior to the Parthenon or
contemporary with it. But we are justified in mentioning these
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA. 233
remains on this page, because although their details are Greek
their plan is very different to anything we are accustomed to see
in Greek tombs. We find these rock-cut quadrangles neither in
Ionia nor upon the mainland of Greece ; on the other hand,
although none have yet been encountered in Phoenicia, several
examples may be pointed to in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
The Jews were near relations to the Phoenicians and were inspired
by them, and in the tombs they built we find chambers giving on
to these open courts, just as they did in the dwelling-houses of
antiquity, and do still in those of Damascus and the rest of
Syria.
The sepulchres we have described and figured from Kition,
Idalion, Golgos, Amathus, and Paphos, are the best, or rather
the least ill, known of all those hitherto discovered in Cyprus.
They 'alone demand notice here, because they alone belong to that
part of the island in which the influence of Phoenicia was pre-
dominant for the longest time. But even in those districts where
the mass of the population was Greek, most of the types we have
described are to be encountered. In the northern and western
districts, for instance, the oven-shaped tombs have been found ; l at
Curium, where that form of sepulchre occurs very often, shallow
graves hollowed in the floors of the hypogea, and sarcophagi cut
from blocks of living rock that have been left standing in the
o o
centre of the hollowed diameter, have also been met with.2 On
the other hand, in the whole of that part of Cyprus which was
under Greek domination, neither anthropoid sarcophagi, nor those
peculiar steles of which we have given so many examples, seem to
have been encountered.
Finally, we must not forget to note that, in the whole of what we
may call Phoenician Cyprus the tomb is as mute as on the
Phoenician mainland. It is often rich in potteries and miscella-
neous objects of much value, but neither upon the slab with which
its entrance is closed, nor upon the steles and richly ornamented
sarcophagi, is there a name or an invocation to the gods. The
only exception to this rule is furnished by a stele from Athieno
(Fig. 54), on which appear two Greek words written on one side
in Cypriot characters, on the other in the alphabet employed by
the Greek race all over their world.
In the absence of precise documents we cannot affirm that
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, pp. 226 and 295. 2 Ibid. p. 295.
VOL. I. H H
234 HISTORY or ART IN PIKKNKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
among the very ancient tombs found by Salzmann in the island of
Rhodes, at Camirus and lalysus, there were any of certain
Phoenician origin ; and yet some of these sepulchres reminded
their finder of the tombs of Egypt. " They are composed," he
tells us, "of a square well, from one side of which opens the
doorway into the coffin chamber itself." In this arrangement they
resemble the oldest of the tombs we have noticed on the Syrian
coast. In any case, the Greeks never colonized Malta or Gozo, so
that in their case we are in no danger of mistaking archaic Greek
sepulchres for Phoenician burial-places.1 The tombs of Malta and
Gozo have never yet been studied as they deserve to be, but an
inscription has come down to us which proves that there were
Phoenician tombs in Malta.- It was found in a hypogeum with
walls whitened with chalk. The slab on which it appears was set
in the rock ; it is now in the Cabinet des Medailles, at Paris. We
thus have fair grounds for ascribing a Phoenician origin to the
many anepigraphic tombs which have been found in other parts of
the island.3 No vessel or trinket of certain provenance has been
found in them to which we might turn for the date ; but their
general arrangement agrees with what we have learnt as to the
sepulchres of Phoenicia. In one, however, the chamber to which
the well gives access is not rectangular, as it usually is in Cyprus
and Phoenicia, but round, a form we have not hitherto encountered
(Figs. 162, 163, and 164).
Nothing could be simpler or less varied than the tombs of which
the vast necropolis of Carthage is composed ; they are all subter-
ranean, and are carved in the soft limestone of the Djcbel kawi.
The main tomb consists of a rectangular chamber, varying in size
according to the wealth of its proprietor or the number of his
family, but always arranged on the principle shown in our Figs.
1 The manuscript journal of Salzmann's explorations is preserved in the British
Museum, but the information it contains is very summary and vague, if we may
judge from the fragment which has been published in the Bulletin archeo-
logique du Musee Parent (Xo. i, October 1867, folio, the only number of that
publication which ever saw the light). Unfortunately Salzmann's paper, entitled
Une Ville homerique (Rente archeologique, 2nd series, vol. iv. p. 467), has no illustrations.
It is from this article (p. 468) that we quote above.
2 Corpus. Jnscr. Semit. pars i. No. 124. The eponymous magistrate was no doubt
a local suffete.
3 Description of Ancient Rock Tombs at Gha'in TiffiJia and Tal Horr, Malta, by
Captain JOHX S. SWANN (Archceologia, vol. xl. pp. 483-487).
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA.
165 and 1 66, which represent a tomb chosen as a type by Beule
after having visited, as he tells us, many thousands of these
sepulchres.1 A staircase about a yard wide, and consisting of nine
rather steep steps, leads down to the doorway of the chamber, which
is nearly seven feet high and slightly arched at the top. The
walls of the staircase, like those of the tomb chamber, are covered
with a hard and fine white stucco ; they are, in fact, the whited
sepulchres to which Christ compares the Pharisees.2 The chamber
FIGS. 162 and 163. — Plan and section of a tomb at Malta. From the Archaologia.
itself, in the tomb we have taken as a type, is 22 feet 4 inches
long by 10 feet 10 inches wide, and 7 feet 6 inches high. "The
chief characteristic of the Carthaginian tombs is not only sim-
plicity, but economy. All the arrangements are made so as to
take up the least possible space. Only one person at a time can
1 BEULE, Fouille s a Carthage, 4to, Paris, 1861, pp. 121-143.
2 ST. MATTHEW, xxiii. 27. Saint Chrysostom explains the phrase of the evangelist
by these words : ra<£oi Ke^picr^evot yitya) re KCU ct(r/3eo-Ta>.
236 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKF.MCIA AND ITS DFPENDENCIKS.
pass through the doorway or clown the steps ; the ceiling is but
little above the head of a man, and we shall see that the bodies
themselves had no room to spare. Right and left the rock is
cut into three shallow arches; these are 5 feet 10 inches wide,
\vhile the pilasters between them are from 29 to 30 inches wide
at the base and stand out about 14 inches from the wall.1 ....
In the space embraced by each of these arcades two rectan-
gular tunnels are cut, each 6 feet 10 inches deep, 2 feet 10 inches
high, and i foot 10 inches wide. Such measurements just give
room for a corpse to lie at length. The bodies were put in
head first, as we know from the positions of the bones in the
FIG. 164. — Cross section of above tomb.
few niches that have been opened." In all this we may recog-
nize the rock-cut niches, the fours a cerciicil or corpse-ovens
which we have already encountered in Phoenicia. Their number
is here increased to seventeen by the three pierced in the farthest
wall of the chamber and the pair that flank the entrance. A
sepulchre here and there has no more than three niches, and one
or two have twenty-one ; while a few have neither staircase nor
doorway, properly speaking ; they are reached by a mere perpen-
dicular hole, barely large enough to admit the passage of a man's
body.
1 BEUL£, Fouilles a Carthage, p. 132.
2 Ibid. p. 135.
THE PHCENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA. 237
No trace of anything in the shape of a door, of hinges or
sealing holes, was found. The tomb was closed in all likelihood
by a heavy slab fitting exactly to the opening and kept in place
by the lowest step of the staircase (Figs. 165 and I66).1
The niches for the bodies must also have been closed as soon
as occupied. They were built up with small stones imbedded in
mortar and covered either with stucco like that upon the rest of
the walls, or with a smooth slab. All these niches are now open
and empty. The necropolis of Carthage has always been so
accessible that it has been more completely sacked than even the
cemeteries on the Syrian coast. It was pillaged in antiquity by
the legionaries of Scipio and the Roman colonists of Caius
Gracchus and Csesar ; for many centuries past it has been used
as a quarry for lime. Everything has been carried away, both
objects deposited in the niches and chambers, and sepulchral
inscriptions. It would seem that formerly the latter were very
numerous ; it is said that beneath each niche a little slab was
fixed giving the name of the occupant. We are told that the holes
by means of which these slabs were fixed are still quite visible,
and that they are so small in diameter and so precisely cut that
they could hardly have been used for anything but bronze plaques.
The use of that valuable material would account for the total
disappearance of the slabs.2
Until more complete excavations or some fortunate chance
brings one of the slabs to light, we cannot affirm that these niches
bore the names of those by whom they were occupied, an arrange-
ment which never existed, or at least which has left no trace of
its existence, in the cemeteries of Phoenicia proper. The great
peculiarity of the Carthaginian necropolis is its freedom from
those differences which are so striking when we pass from one
town to another, or from one period to another, in a cemetery on
the Syrian coast or in Cyprus. Here we find no pyramids or
other salient features rising above the ground, as at Arvad and
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, pp. 129-131.
2 Ibid. p. 137. BEULE'S evidence on this point is very clear, but it is curious
that among so many plaques not one should have been recovered, either in place
and under some fall of earth, or upon the floor and hidden by the debris with which
most of the chambers are so deeply encumbered that it is impossible to stand up in
them. Here is an opportunity for some explorer with more time at his command
than Beule could afford.
238 HISTORY OK ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
in the country about Tyre ; no mummy-cases as at Sidon, or
sarcophagi covered with reliefs, as at Amathus ; no moulded
steles, or winged lions and sphinxes, as at Golgos ; nothing but
the nudity of well-whitened walls and the monotony of arrange-
ments that never varied in any essential particular. In all this we
FIG. 165. — Plan of a Carthaginian tomb. From Beule.
must not see the effect of police regulation or of hieratic prescrip-
tion ; it is sufficiently explained by the very history of Carthage.
In comparison with the cities of Phoenicia and the island of
Cyprus, Carthage was a modern town ; she had no archaic period.
Add to this that she was in Africa, far enough away from Egypt,
FIG. 166. — Section of a Carthaginian tomb. From Beule.
Assyria, and Greece ; the influence of the great national arts of
those three countries did not press upon her too closely and
directly ; she had fewer types and motives offered to her for
imitation than Phoenicia, and took even less pains to invent.
The Tyrian colonists, by whom Carthage was founded, brought
THE PHCENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PH<E\ICIA. 239
from their mother-city the habit of disposing of their dead in
niches cut in the living rock ; the nature of the soil allowed
them to be faithful to the custom of their fathers, and they
were faithful ; for five centuries the workmen whom they
employed to prepare and decorate their tombs reproduced the
same arrangement with unswerving patience ; we could hardly
have a better proof of the poverty of the Carthaginian genius,
or of the dryness of the national imagination.
But if wealthy Carthage was satisfied to repeat a single type of
sepulchre down to the very last days of her independent life, the
Phoenician colonies in Sardinia offer more variety.1 In that
island there were towns of different origin and very different age.
Some were founded by the Tyrians when they set about providing
naval stations and ports of call for ships on their way to Spain,
others were not born or, at least, developed until the years of
the Punic supremacy. This tomb may be the property of a
Syrian merchant, that of a Carthaginian ; the majority must have
belonged to those colonists who left Carthage to settle in the
towns of the south and west and in the country about them. In
face of this variety in the population it is, then, not a thing to
surprise us that the principal variants on the Phoenician tomb as
we described it in Syria should be found in Sardinia, or even that
a few forms should be encountered which are not to be met with
elsewhere.
The Phoenician tombs of Sardinia are rock-cut. As a rule they
consist of a chamber reached by several steps (Figs. 167, 168) ;
but in the cemeteries of Caralis and Tharros we find more than one
example of sepulchres in which access to the chamber is by a
rectangular well with steps cut in its sides.2 The mouths of these
1 In speaking of Sardinia we shall take for our constant guide Signer ETTORE
PAIS. His paper entitled La Sardegna Prima del Dominio Romano (4to, Rome,
1881,) is a model of sober judgment and precise science ; it will be found in the
Transactions of the Reale Accademia del Lincei. The canon SPANO began to draw
attention to the antiquities discovered in Sardinia, and to keep an exact note
of the discoveries ; his Bulletino Archceologico Sardo (1855-1861), which has rendered
great services in its time, may still be consulted with advantage. La Marmora,
Elena, Cara, and Crespi, whose works we shall have to quote more than once before
the end of these volumes, have also brought together many valuable data : but Pais
was the first to bring a sufficient critical education to bear on the question. He
makes short work of many illusions and mistakes into which his predecessors had
.fallen.
2 ETTORE PAIS, La Sardegna Prima del Dominio Romano, p. 86. Those who
240 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
wells, which are sometimes surrounded by a low wall of loose
stones, are from twenty to twenty-four feet deep. They are often
shaped like a rectangular chimney (Fig. 169), but sometimes their
vertical section is that of several truncated pyramids placed one
upon another (Figs. 170 and i/i). Upon their walls we may still
trace here and there such emblems as the crux ansata and the
disk and crescent. After a funeral these wells were filled with
rubble. Now and then we find two chambers, not en suite, but
one above the other, and opening into the same well but at different
levels. In these chambers with wells the dead were, as a rule, placed
with their feet towards the door.1
This is the most ancient form of all, the least removed from the
Egyptian prototype, so that we are not surprised to meet with it on
'. .. .>•;.-,-.-:, '
FIG. 167. — Plan of a tomb at Sulcis. From La Marmora. -
the shores of the fine anchorage of Calaris, now Cagliari. This
harbour opens to the south-east close to the southernmost point of
desire more circumstantial details of these Sardinian tombs may consult the following
works with advantage : A. DELLA MARMORA, Voyage en Sardaigne et Itincraire de
Vile de Sardaigne pour faire Suite au Voyage dans cette Contree, 5 vols. 8vo, 1839-
1860, and folio of plates without date. The part dealing specially with antiquities
is vol. ii. with the forty plates in the second part of the Atlas. On many pages of
the Itineraire, too, information of more recent date is given. V. CRESPI, Catalogo
Illustrate della Raceolta di Antichita Sarde Possedute da I Signor Raimondo Chessa
(4to, Cagliari, 1868, 157 pp. and 8 plates), pp. 114, 115, i47> *5°-l57- ELENA,
Scavi nella Necropoli . Occidental di Cagliari (Cagliari, 410, 1868, i plate). It is
unfortunately difficult to procure these curious and interesting works outside the
island. I owe my ability to refer to them to the kindness of MM. Pais and Crespi.
1 ELENA, Scari, &c. p. 15. 2 Atlas, part ii. plate 35.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKKXICIA.
241
the island. It was directly in the way of ships steering towards
Spain from Sicily or Africa. Nowhere else could a safer anchorage
or a finer stretch of country in its neighbourhood be found. When
the Tyrians began to visit Sardinia it was here, no doubt, that
their first foot was planted, and that they founded a city which
has remained the capital of the island ever since. As for Tharros,
we know nothing of its history,1 but its situation too was very-
advantageous ; the broad haven that lies beneath it looks out to
the Balearic Isles and the distant coast of Spain. It was here,
perhaps, that the ships of Tarshish broke their long voyages both
outwards and homewards, and took in food and water. We are
FIG 168. — Section of a tomb at Sulci>-. From La Marmora.
inclined, therefore, to believe in a high antiquity for Tharros ; in
any case, the extent of its cemetery and the richness of the deposits
it inclosed prove that the city had a long and brilliant period of
prosperity. Down to 1851 the chambers in which its dead took
their rest were almost untouched, but in that year the excavations
began, and in the necropolis of Tharros most of the objects which
fill the museums of modern Sassari and Cagliari were found. Private
collections in the island can show many more objects from the
1 Before the recent discoveries the town of Tharros was only known from Ptolemy's
geography, and from the existence of a Roman milestone on which the distance
between Tharros and Cornus is marked. In Ptolemy's manuscripts the word is
written Tharras ; the form Tharros appears in the Latin text.
VOL. I. I I
24-2
HISTORY OK ART IN I'IKI.NK i\ AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
same place, and sonic have found their way into the great museums
of Kurope. Unhappily Sardinia, like Cyprus, has not been ex-
plored on any strict system, so that it is now impossible to find out
which things came from which tomb.1 The cemetery of Tharros
was pillaged rather than explored or studied ; now that it has been
placed under the guardianship of zealous and competent men,
few discoveries are made in it ; it is, in fact, exhausted, or
nearly so.
In the absence of drawings made on the spot and of circum-
stantial narratives, it is very difficult to form a clear idea of the
I-'tc,. lot). -Tomb at Cusjluri. I1' mm I'.lcna.
tombs from which so many interesting monuments have been
taken. Thus we know that many of the sepulchres at Tharros
have an external salient member, which is sometimes a pyramidion
(Fig. i 72), sometimes a small hemispherical dome (Fig. 143), but
1 ETTORF, PALS, /.a SarJe^tm, pp. cS6, 87. SPAXO tells us th.it the chambers
excavated in the rock were from 6 to 10 feet below the surface, and from 6 to 10
feet high (Sullettino, vol. vii. p. 184). The most complete work on the ruins of
Tharros is SPANO'S Notizie sull' antica Citta di T/iarros, reprinted at the end of the
seventh volume of the Bulletlino. See also LA MARMORA'S Ifiticraire, pp. 574-609.
Care must be taken, however, to reject all the statements borrowed by Spano and
La Marmora from those Codici d* Arborea of which the authenticity is now generally
denied.
THE PIKENICIAX TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA.
we are tolcl nothing as to the size of these features ; we are allowed
to gather that they stood before the tombs, the entrances to which
were closed generally by a slab of sandstone, but sometimes by a
brick wall. We are no better informed in the case of a curious
FIGS. 170, 171. — Sections of a tomb at Caghari. From Crespi.
monumental group discovered in the same cemetery (Fig. 174), a
large rectangular stele, decorated on its face with a disk and crescent
moon in relief; right and left a pyramidal cippus with a double
FIG. 172. — Funerary Cippus from Tharros. From Spano.
moulding about its summit. All three of these columns stand upon
a single base. The central stele is crowned either by a pediment
or a pyramidion which stands out slightly beyond the line of its
face. This same triangular crown appears on those cippi on which
J44 HISTORY <>!•' ART i\ lJii<r.\iriA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
we find the names of deceased persons (Fi<^. I75)-1 ^"c do not
know that any sarcophagi, anthropoid or otherwise, have been
lji<;s. i"3- I74-—~Cippi from tombs at Tharros. From Spano.
found in the Sardinian cemeteries, but fragmentary coffins of
cypress or juniper have been encountered.2 In some cases there
I'll.. 175. Srm<Ktonc cippus with Phfrnician inscription. Height 31 indie--.
is no trace of a coffin, but the dead were always surrounded,
in the tomb, with objects of various kinds, some of them amulets,
1 Corpus Inscrip. Semit. pars i. No. 159.
- PAIS, J.a Sanft'gfl(Ji P- t^'')' note i. I^LENA, Scctri, p. 18. CKF.SPI, Catalogs,
p. i=U.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PHOENICIA.
245
others, utensils for use in the subterranean life after death. Thus
we often find amphorre standing in the corner of the chamber,
FIG. 176. — Interior of a tomb at Tharros. From Spano.
their mouths closed with clay. On opening them a deposit is
discovered such as would be left by wine which had slowly
FIG. 177. — Statuette in glazed earthenware. From Crespi.
evaporated. In nearly every sepulchre lamps are placed either
by the corpse or in niches hollowed in the walls (Fig. I/6).1
1 ELENA, Scavi, p. 19.
2.|<> Hi>TokY «)!•• ART iv PHF.MCIA A\I> ITS I )I:I'I.M>FNVIFS.
Among amulets we shall place those figures of tutelary deities,
those statuettes of terra-cotta or gla/ed earthenware which, as a
rule, suggest Egyptian types.1 As examples we figure the hawk-
headed deity with his arms close to his sides and the small elongated
cube with figures on three of its faces. Of these one resembles
Bes, another the pygmy god who has been identified with Ptah,
while the third presents a rarer type ; that of a nude and winged
goddess with her legs ending in the body of a serpent. Above
Fie.. I/S. — Amulet in gla/cd earthenware. From Crespi.
her head appears the solar disk between two pendant wings
(Fig. 1/8). We may also note a woman's head with an Egyptian
head-dress (Fig. 1 79), which formed part of a necklace, and a
great variety of scarabs (Fig. 180) ; sometimes a so\v< takes the
place of a scarab, but even here the under side of the base on
which that animal stands is engraved with Egyptian symbols
(Fig. 181). Even the oudja, or mystical eye of Osiris, is not
absent (Fig. 182). On the reverse of this latter amulet a group is
FH;. 170. -— f ilas
Fn»n C i
Fi<;. iSo.- Scnrah. From Spam
carved which was a favourite in Egypt, namely, a cow suckling
her calf.2 Finally, the necropolis of Tharros has afforded several
specimens of those light gold and silver sheaths, or etuis, in which
1 CRESPI (Catalogo, p. 28) tells us that these amulets of glazed or white earthen-
ware, of glass, of ivory, and of soft or hard stone, were found in the tombs in
thousands.
2 LKPSIUS, Denkmccler, part ii. plates 31 and 77. Else-vhere (plates 12 and 46)
one finds a goat with a fawn's head.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB A WAV FROM PIKKNICIA.
were inclosed thin plates of the same metals rolled round
cylinders of gilded bronze. These plates are engraved with texts
which have not yet been deciphered ; the plates are to some extent
disfigured, and the writing upon them is extremely fine, as if
written with the help of a magnifying glass. The characters on
•*• r> _' o ?5
one of these metal bands are certainly Phoenician ; on others they
FIG. 181. — Scarab in form of a Sow,
From Spano.
FK;. 182. — Amulet in \\hite earthenware,
glazed. From Crespi.
belong apparently to that alphabet of Saffa which was used by
the southern Shemites, the Arabs, towards the commencement
of the Christian era. In time, no doubt, all these inscriptions will
be deciphered ; it is probable that they will be found to be magic
formulse intended to protect the dead against the attempts of
demons or the violence of tomb-breakers. We figure two of the
ttuis (Figs. 183 and 184). One is decorated with a lion's head,
FIGS. 183, 184. — Etuis found in the tombs. From Spano.
the other with that of a hawk. The ring that appears on them
both suggests that these sheaths were hung round the necks of
the corpses ; it is even possible that they were worn in that fashion
during life.1
1 Upon these little sheaths and their contents see SPAXO, Bullettino, vol. iv. pp.
33-36. CARA, Iscrizioni fenicie sopra Monumenti delta Sardegna che appartengono
al R, Museo in Cagliari, p. 29. Another 'dm found at Tharros is crowned by a
24^ HISTORY or ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
As for things meant for use, such as jewels and earthenware
vessels, we shall find another opportunity for describing them.
The cemetery of Tharros has furnished several fine vases painted
in the Greek style, and a considerable number of black glaze vases
which seem to be of Etruscan manufacture.1 But these are fewer
in number than the vessels of grey pottery decorated with stars
and parallel bands of red paint. This decoration recalls that of
the Cypriot vases, which the vessels on which it is used also
greatly resemble in shape." Asiatic art is again suggested in the
motives and executive details of the jewelry.
The more closely we examine the objects found in the grave-
yards of Sardinia the more certain do we become of the profound
influence exercised by the Shemites of \Yestern Asia over their
production. Sardinia became, and remained for ages, more
thoroughly Phoenician even than Cyprus, in spite of the situation
of the latter island close to the coast of Syria. The Greeks never
won a footing in it. About the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
commerce may, indeed, have introduced a few objects of luxury
bought in Greece or Etruria ; but such imports were few and far
between, and had little or no effect upon the tastes and habits of
the Sardinian population. All that the latter had of civilization,
of art and industry, they drew, first from Tyre, secondly from
Carthage, and these intimate relations endured for a thousand
years. The important place we have here given to Sardinia need,
therefore, cause no surprise ; she would, indeed, have filled a much
larger space in our inquiry had we possessed more copious and
more accurate information. Down to the Roman conquest Sardinia
was hardly more than a dependency, a prolongation, so to speak, of
Asiatic Phoenicia. And this character she only lost very slowly
under the rule of the Roman praetors. Even now, we are told,
human head. It is published by EUTING, in plate xxxvii. of the important study
contributed by him to the Mcnwires de r Academic de Saint-Petersbourg, seventh
series, vol. xvii. An object of the same kind was found at Malta (P,\is, La
Sai-Jt-gna, &c., p. 88, No. 3). RKNAX mentions some very similar objects found at
Saida. " On these," he says, " Hebrew characters of a debased period may be
read ; they repeat the names of the deity, probably with some Cabalistic intention"
(Mission, p. 393). Even at Rome objects very like these, at lenst in external shape,
have been discovered (Bullet tino di Correspondenza Archeologico, 1880, p. 114).
Their use seems therefore to have been very widespread, and to have lasted very
long.
1 PAIS, La Sardegna, p. 90 and No. 3. - Ibid. p. 90.
THE PHOENICIAN TOMB AWAY FROM PIKI.NK i.\. 249
the customs and superstitions of the peasantry show traces of the
habits and beliefs which ruled during the period whose monuments
we have just been describing ; the Syrian cult of Adonis has left
its mark, it is thought, on more than one popular Sardinian
festival.1
Some day, perhaps, the remains of the hardy mariners of
Phoenicia will be found on coasts which at present seem to have
preserved no souvenir of their visits. Such discoveries may help
us to a solution of some minor problems, but they will hardly
modify the results already obtained in any material degree. \Ye
are now well acquainted with the Phoenician tomb. Ill preserved
as it is in nearly every instance, it allows us to point out certain
permanent features, which we may here recapitulate. The
Phoenicians never burned their dead ; from first to last they placed
them underground. With the passage of time natural grottoes
were superseded by artificial chambers cut from the rock ad hoc.
In these every variety of sepulchral bed is to be found ; a ledge
raised a few inches above the floor of the chamber or a trough
sunk in its centre, sarcophagi, both fixed and movable, plain and
decorated, and sometimes like the Egyptian mummy cases in form ;
finally and especially, the oven-shaped niche excavated in the
chamber wall, a receptacle which combined the great advantages
of requiring no coffin and of leaving the chamber itself free for the
celebration of funerary rites, and for the easy passage of future
corpses to the places reserved for them in the family sepulchre.
The marked predilection shown by the Phoenicians for this method
of entombment was in strict harmony with their practical and
utilitarian genius ; they sought for economy in every thing they
did ; they hated all unnecessary expenditure of time, effort, or
money. It is, perhaps, to this trait in their character that the
absence of funerary inscriptions is to be traced. What was the
use, they may have said, of engraving epitaphs in those secret and
walled up chambers, which would never again be entered after the
last niche was filled ? When the Phoenicians found themselves in
a country where sepulchres on the surface of the soil were used, and
attention called to them by an external tombstone, they conformed
to that usage. Look, for instance, at the epitaphs of the Sidonian
merchants who died at Athens. These are often engraved both
in Greek and Phoenician. The Semitic reticence is exchanged for
1 PAIS, La Sardegna, p. 97, and No. 5.
VOL I. K K
250 HISTORY OF ART IN* PIKI.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
tin- frankness of the Greek ; the marble tells us the names of the.
dead, of his father and of his country, sometimes his quality or
profession, as in the epitaph which reads :
" 1 am Ascpta, daughter of Ksmounchillem, and a Sidonian.
This monument was raised to me by latanbel, son of Ksmoun-
silleh, hi<jh priest of the ^od Nergal."
CHAPTER IV.
SACRED ARCHITECTURE.
§ i. — The Temple in Phoenicia.
THE earliest form of religion practised by those Canaanitish
and Semitic tribes who peopled Syria was that of the high places
so often mentioned in the Bible. At the time of their first
arrival in the country their creed was fetishism. Their
worship and respect were given to those natural objects and
phenomena which made the deepest impression on their eyes
and imaginations, to the clear and refreshing springs at which
they quenched their thirst and to the torrent whose noise and
turbulence oppressed their spirits, to trees, to mountains whose
sides were covered with forests and whose heads were often lost
in clouds. In a country in which plains were of small extent,
where chains of mountains rise on every horizon, a mountain
especially was a great fetish, and what could be more natural than
to do it honour by erecting an altar of sacrifice on its summit ?
And with time another idea may have come to mingle with this ;
when the conception of personal or semi-personal deities first
sprang up and they were given a dwelling-place in the skies, men
thought that by climbing hills they brought themselves near the
homes of the gods. From the hi^h summits which commanded
o o
the country and the long length of coast, the smoke of the sacrifice
and the prayers of the officiating priest would have a shorter
distance to travel before they reached the ears and the nostrils of
the divinity to whom they were addressed.
Whatever the original cause of this form of worship may have
been it was always of an extreme simplicity. Of this we have a
proof in a curious passage of Tacitus, who tells us — and he is
2^2 HISTORY <>!•' ART IN PII<KNICIA AND ITS DKPENDENCIKS.
confirmed by Suetonius — that during his sojourn in Palestine
Yrsp.isian went to consult the oracle of Mount Cannel.
" Cannd," he says, " is on the borders of Judoja and Syria ; the
mountain and the god have the! same name. The god has
neither statue' nor temple, for such is the tradition ; he has only a
much venerated altar."1 The only sij.ni of man in the place was
the- altar of rough stones, like that built in the same place by
Elijah when he wished to confound the false prophets of Baal.-'
A sacrifice could be offered, in the words of the Jewish writer,
"on every high hill, and under every green tree."' In the Gneco-
Roman period, when it was desired to decorate these high places
with architecture, men were content to build a colonnade round
their summits. At Belat, to the south of Tyre, traces of one
of these ancient sanctuaries have been found. A laurel wood,
which decorates and partly hides the ruins with its foliage, must
be the remains of the sacred grove by which the altar was once
surrounded.1
In this open-air worship there was nothing to favour the pro-
gress of sculpture or architecture ; the god had neither home nor
image ; but the Phoenicians had much communication with Egypt,
and imported the idea of the temple from her. The only temple
which still exists on the soil of Phoenicia is nothing more than
the reduction of an Egyptian shrine adapted to the soil and habits
of its new country. We are here referring to the building called
by the dwellers in its neighbourhood El-Maabcd, or "the temple."
As in the buildings of the Nile valley the essential part, the heart
and centre of the whole, is a stone tabernacle or monolithic
chapel, in which either an image or symbol of the divinity was
enshrined.' We have already given a plan (Eig. 39) and a view
(Eig. 40) of the building as a whole, but we have yet to describe
the arrangements of this small cella, which is closed on three sides
and open towards the valley, like the building by which it is
surrounded.6 The tabernacle is composed of four stones, three of
which are interposed between the mass of living rock, which
1 TACITUS, History, ii. 78. SUKTONIUS, Vespasian, 5.
2 i Kings xviii. 30-32.
3 i Kings xiv. 23.
4 RKNAN, Mission, p. 687. Cf. pp. 691, 692.
5 See Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I. Ch. IV. § 3.
0 KENAN, Mission, pp. 63-68, and plate x.
THE TEMPLE IN PIKKNICIA.
forms the foundation, and the roof, which is a monolith. The
anterior edge of the roof comes forward as far as the rock
foundation, forming a kind of awning which was, we may
guess, supported originally by metal columns. A glance at our
section (Fig. 185) will show how bold and well marked this
salience is.
The arrangements of this small open chamber are peculiar in
more ways than one. In the interior the ceiling is a ilat arch,
while the projection in front is hollowed underneath into three
oblong coffers.
'0 '1 !2 !3
FIG. 185. — The Maabed at Amrilh. From Renan.
The floor of the chamber slopes from back to front, and at each
side there are two ledges about thirty-two inches apart.1 In front
of each of the door jambs there is a shallow square hole (c and D),
which must have been used to receive either the bases of a pair of
columns, or those of candelabra or some other ornament of the
kind (Fig. 187). Several more shallow cavities are to be
1 GERHARD sees in these ledges a double throne. Such an hypothesis hardly
seems probable, however. Seated face to face like this two sacred images would
only present their sides to the spectator. Gerhard was obliged to depend upon very
inaccurate drawings for his knowledge of all these Phoenician buildings, and in spite
of his penetration he was often misled by them ( Ueber die Kunst do- P/ioenizier,
P- 5^-
254 HISTORY OK ART i\ PIIH.NICIA AND ITS I )KI'K.\DK\CIKS.
traced in the salient part of the roof. Finally, at about three-
quarters of the height, inside, and near the anterior edge of the
lateral walls, there is, on each side of the doorway, a hole about
fifteen centimetres deep and ten square (H in Fig. 185). These
two holes seem, from their si/e and position, to have been meant
F|I;. iS6.-- Ci-ilin^i'f tlii- M;iaK"l at Ainritli. Fr»:n Kenan.
to receive an iron or wooden bar for a curtain by which the interior
of the sanctuary could be protected from profane eyes.
" The tabernacle is about twenty-four feet high. Its general
aspect is Egyptian, but Egyptian with a difference. The fillet
and cornice on four of the edges of the monolithic roof are its only
ornament. This severity of style, and the notion of force aroused
Fic.. iSj. — The Maabed at Amiith. I'lan at A n (Fig. 185). From Renan.
by the huge materials employed, are characteristics similar to those
we have already noticed in speaking of the sepulchral monuments
of Amrith.
" The four walls of the rock which serves as a base to the
edifice are smooth for the upper two-thirds of their height ; the
TIIK TKMPI.K ix PIHKXICIA.
lower third, on the other hand, presents the appearance of rock
which has long been lapped by water. This circumstance, added
to the actual existence of a spring whose waters now escape
through the boundary wall, leads us to suppose that, when the
north face was shut in with a wall, the inclosure formed a vast
basin, in the middle of which the tabernacle rose like a ' holy of
holies.' " l
The surface of the inclosure now has the aspect of a rough
meadow. A thick layer of earth has been gradually deposited above
the carefully levelled rock, but at the depth of a foot water is reached.
Three sides of the inclosure are walled in by barriers of living
rock, about seventeen feet high at their highest parts. It is probable
that where their height was deficient it was supplemented originally
by masonry. The floor of the courtyard is on the same level as
the valley of the Nalir-Amrith, on which it opens on its northern
face. We may suppose that this side, too, was formerly closed by
a wall with one or several doors. A few blocks are still in place,
but a thick growth of arbutus has sprung up on the site and hides
all that may remain of the ancient wall.
At many points on the inner surface of these inclosing walls
shallow cavities are sunk into the rock ; they were once filled, no
doubt, with votive steles. Side by side with them we also find niches
rounded at the top.2 Higher up in the wall there are some smaller
and deeper cavities ; these are square, and they seem to have been
cut to receive the ends of beams. This conjecture is confirmed by
the fact that at the four angles of the enceinte the traces ol square
piers or columns are still to be found. Standing away about
twelve feet from the wall, these would help numerous intermediate
shafts of lighter construction to support the roof of an open gallery
or arcade, the cross timbers of which would be fixed, at one end,
in the holes above mentioned.
The Maabed of Amrit is the only temple built by the Semitic
race of which Syria has any important remains to show. There
is every reason to believe it more ancient than the monuments of
the same kind in Cyprus, Gozo, and Malta, of which we shall
presently have to speak. " Nowhere else do we get such clear
1 REN AN, Mission, pp. 64, 65.
2 See the view of part of this courtyard at the foot of plate x. in the Atlas of the
Mission de Phcnide.
256 IliSTOUY OK ART IN Pll<KNICIA ANI> ITS I )l-:i'KNI )ENCIKS.
indications ol the r ligious habits <>! these peoples. The arrange-
ments of the building clearly point to an ark or tabernacle
analogous to the ark of the Hebrews and destined to hold sacred
objects, a sort of /vw/w,1 with its harain, or reserved inclosure, in
which all the precious objects ol the nation were grouped. Perhaps
steles, or metal slabs, inscribed with the religious laws of the nation,
were deposited there. ... In any case, we may guess that these
cellar were called Ihcba — '' ark " —by the Phoenicians, as well as by
the Hebrews, and that all the more because this word, like the
object itself, appears to be Egyptian in its origin. . . . Here, as in
the tabernacle of the Jews, metal ornaments and precious stuffs
seem to have been lavished."
The Maabed has been seen by all the travellers who have visited
that part of the Syrian coast, but the minute exploration which
M. Renan made of the whole site of Amrit led to the discovery
of the remains of two more tabernacles previously unknown.
They stand in a laurel brake near the spring known as the
A'in-cl-IIayat, or fountain of serpents'!1 The better preserved of
the two is broken into seven or eight fragments. After having
measured the pieces and made a separate drawing of each, M.
Thobois succeeded in making a restoration, in which nothing was
left to conjecture (Fig. iSS). The chapel in question was a
monolith. It was carried on a cubical block ten feet square,
which, in its turn, stood on a base composed of two huge stones,
which raised it above the level of the marsh. The surface of this
base was considerable smaller than that of the block of stone it
supported ; so that the latter overhung it on all four sides to the
extent of about a yard. On two sides of the larger rock the
remains of a flight of steps, leading to the platform of the cella,
mi^ht be traced. The cella itself, which was about eighteen feet
o o
high, was crowned with one of those cornices made up of urxi of
which we have already given the details (Fig. 61). The ceiling
of the tabernacle was a flattened arch like that of the Jlfaabect, but
its plainness was relieved by two great pairs of wings sculptured
upon it ; the one having for centre the globe flanked by two unci ;
the other, apparently, an eagle's head.
About five-and-thirty feet to the east of the tabernacle just
1 Kaaba means a building in the shape of a cube.
2 RKNAN, Mission. p. 67.
3 Ibid. pp. 68-70, and plate ix.
THE TEMPLE IN PHCEXICIA.
257
described stand the base and lower parts of another ; of this
enough has not been recovered to justify a complete restoration,
but there is sufficient to dispel all doubt as to the strong- re-
semblance that must have existed between the two monuments.
FIG. 188. — Monolithic tabernacle of Ain-el-llayat. From Kenan.
9
The general Egyptian character, the small flights of steps giving
access to the cella, are conspicuous in both. Their position, too, face
to face and not far apart, shows that they formed parts of a single
whole ; one of the two may have been consecrated to a god, and
the other to his corresponding goddess. It is likely that in
FIG. 189. — Plan of the two tabernacles at Ain-el-IIayat. From Kenan.
antiquity, as now, the feet of both monuments stood in water.
They would thus be protected from profane hands, which could
only reach them by means of a boat, which we may be sure would
not be at the order of the first comer. May we not even suppose
VOL. i. L L
HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
that in this arrangement a souvenir of those lakes which were so
conspicuous in the temples of the Nile valley is to be traced ?*
The most interesting rites and religious buildings in Phoenicia
were those of Byblos.- Byblos was a holy city, a city of pilgrimage
rather than a mercantile centre/' She came under the influence of
Egypt more than any other town in PhaMiicia, and her rites had
at once a singular resemblance to the rites of the Hebrews and to
those practised in the Nile valley. They involved, for instance,
the use of a portable temple, or ark, dragged by oxen, which seems
to have been quite similar to that of the Jews,4 while it reminds
us not a little of the portable shrines of the Egyptians/' The
temples of Byblos must have been among those which, towards the
end of the second century of our era, seemed to the author of the
treatise, On the Syrian Goddess, to have a very ancient look.6
The most important of them all was that in which those mystic and
sensual rites of Adonis were celebrated which became so popular
in the East under the successors of Alexander ; unfortunately we
only know its plan from medals of the Roman epoch, but a few
figures of animals, fragmentary reliefs, and decorative details have
survived to our time (Fig. ig).7
The building as shown on these medals is composed of two
distinct parts. On the left there is a cella surmounted by a
triangular pediment, the whole differing in no way from what
Vitruvius calls a temple /;/ ant is ; on the right there is a vast
courtyard surrounded by a portico. In the centre of this court
rises the conical stone, in which the god is symbolized ; it is sur-
rounded by a protecting balustrade. The area of the courtyard,
which is higher than the surrounding country is reached by a wide
1 See Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. X. p. 348 and 438.
2 We make use of the two forms Gebal and Byblos indifferently. Bi'/3Ao? results
from an alteration in the Greek period, by which y was changed into (3 (ft^t^apor
= yXc<£a/jov). Even at the Roman period the natives called their town Gebal. It
is curious that the primitive form should have survived in the modern Gebeil or
Gebeyl.
s REX AN, Mission, p. 215.
1 Aypos . . . ov KOI £oa.vov flvrti fj.d\a cre/3u(Tyu.<.or, KOL raw £vyotj>opovp.fvov ei' &OIVIKTJ.
PHILO of BYRLOS, p. 20 of Orelli's edition.
5 Art in Ancient JZg\pt, Vol. I. p. 352, Figs. 209, 210.
r> The writer in question quotes, in fact, the temple of Aphrodite at Byblos as
appearing almost as old as the Egyptian temples (§ 2-9).
7 Lions seem to have been numerous at Byblos. See in Corpus Inscriptionum
Sewiticantm, pars i. p. 2, those found with the stele of Jehaw-Melek.
THE TEMPLE IN PIKENKIA. 259
flight of steps ending in a pillared propykeum. The lateral temple
must date from the Seleucid epoch, or even later ; the really old
and primitive part of the whole structure, the part which justifies
the words of the Pseudo-Lucian, is the cloister with its cone. It
will be seen that the general arrangement is similar to that at
Amrit. The chief difference lies in the fact that the arcade is
backed by a wall and not by rock ; the massive chapel of Amrit
is replaced by the symbolic cone ; the principle is the same, but at
By bios the sacred emblem is set in the open air, while at Amrit
it is protected by a shrine.
The Pseudo-Lucian speaks also of a building which he reached
" after a day's journey into the Lebanon from Byblos," as one of
the oldest of Phoenician temples.1 This excursion its chronicler
was only able to make by following the waters of the River
Adonis, now the Nahr-IbraJiim, up their valley, which was then
"a sort of territory sacred to Adonis, filled with shrines and
temples devoted to his worship." 2 At many points between
Byblos and Aphaca " tombs of Adonis " were pointed out,
cenotaphs analogous to those " holy sepulchres," which were so
common in Catholic cities in the middle ages. But in spite of
what this intelligent and attentive traveller tells us, it is doubtful
whether any of these buildings date back to a really very distant
age. The upper valleys of the Lebanon do not appear to have
been opened to Phoenician civilization till very late. M. Renan,
indeed, found some interesting ruins in the gorge of the Nalir-
Ibrahim, but they all date from the Roman period.3 At MacJmaka,
at Gineh, at Afka, the ancient Apkaca (Fig. 18), at Sanou/i, both
sculpture and architecture bear unmistakable marks of the
decadence. Perhaps some of these buildings were copied in their
plan and general arrangements from some of the oldest temples
on the coast, a proceeding which would, of course, be likely to lead
a foreign traveller to wrong conclusions.4
Among the great temples which he calls ancient and thinks to
1 Upon the Syrian Goddess, § 9.
2 RENAN, Mission, p. 295. 3 Mission, 1. ii. ch. iii.
4 After declaring that the Egyptians were the inventors both of the religion and of
the temples, the writer adds : Kcu eo-riv Ipa KOL ev 2,vpir) ov Trapa TTO\.V TOIS AtyvTTTtoicri
wroxpoj/eovra, ran/ e'yw TrActora oTrwTra. He then enumerates the buildings which
appeared to him to belong to that category, and he concludes with these words :
TaSc /AO/ earl TO, ey TTJ ^vpi-y ap^aia KCU /u,eydAa ipa (§ 2-9).
260 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKMNICIA AM> ITS DKI'KNDENCIES.
be as old as those of Fgypt, the Pseudo-Lucian also counts those
of Astarte at Siclon and Melkart at Tyre, the latter the temple
admired by Herodotus; ' but nothing now remains of either one or
the other, and archaeologists are not even agreed as to where they
stood.
And here we must find space to mention a ruin which is to be
found in the immediate neighbourhood of Sidon (Fig. 190), near
the village of Roumeli. Part of it the villagers have turned into a
stable for cattle:, by filling up the space under a wide lintel and
between two curiously-carved piers with a rough stone wall. The
forms of these piers and of the lintel are shown in our woodcut.
The lintel is about fifteen feet long. The sculptured objects
which stand in the niches are too worn and broken to permit
any conjecture as to what they originally represented. From
FIG. 190. — Ruin in the neighbourhood of Sidon. From Rcnan.
certain appearances it is clear that the present arrangement of
these objects is not of any great antiquity. Most likely the two
piers and the lintel originally belonged to some temple now-
destroyed, and, if we may accept that hypothesis, they afford
another proof of the influence of Egyptian examples.
We know very little of the internal arrangement and furnishing
of the Phoenician temple. In the fifteen-line inscription on the
stele of Jehaw-Melek, king of Byblos (Fig. 23), the works he
undertook in the temple of the " mistress of Gebal," for the
purpose of conciliating her favour, are mentioned apparently ; -
but unhappily the text has suffered greatly, and most of the
suggested restorations are open to grave doubt. Three things
alone appear to be certain. In the first place there was, either in
1 HKRODOTUS, ii. 44.
2 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticanun, pars i. No. i.
THE TKMPLK IN PIKKXICIA. 261
the temple itself or its precinct, a bronze altar.1 Secondly, gold
was largely employed in the decoration of the building ; - thirdly,
it had a portico and columns/' As for whether Jehaw-Melek
boasts of having raised these supports or only of their embellish-
ment we cannot say. All that we can clearly deduce from this much
injured inscription agrees perfectly well with what we have learnt
elsewhere as to the religious architecture of Phoenicia. The
o
bronze altar reminds us of all those works in the same metal
which were carried out for Solomon by the Tyrian founders under
the direction of Hiram, and particularly of the " brazen sea ; "
the temple at Jerusalem shone with gold in mass and in thin
leaves laid upon ornaments and panels ; and even at Tyre itself,
did not Herodotus find his admiration stirred by a great stele of
pure gold on the threshold of the temple of Melkart ?4 and accord-
FIG. 191. — Stone altar. From Kenan.
ing to all appearances the portico to which Jehaw-Melek alludes in
his inscription is identical with the structure represented on the
imperial coins of Byblos (Fig. 58).
Jehaw-Melek says nothing about the form of his bronze altar,
but perhaps we may be permitted to guess that it was the proto-
type of an altar of peculiar form of which many examples have
been encountered at Gebal and in its neighbourhood (Fig. iQi).5
In the same district altars have been found with an ornament
round their summits which recalls the crenellations of Assyria
(Fig. 78) ; as for the columns which rose in pairs, like the
Egyptian obelisks, at the doors of the Phoenician temples, it is
easy to understand why they have left no traces. Even when of
stone they were fragile and defenceless, while when they were
1 Line 4. 2 Lines 4 and 5. 3 Line 6.
4 HERODOTUS, ii. 44. 5 REN AN, Mission, p. 229.
262 HISTORY ov ART IN PIKKNK IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIF.S.
made of bronze, or of wood cased in bronze, they were predestined to
certain destruction. Their existence, therefore, is only known to us
through the ancient writers and their forms through coins and reliefs;
we may say the same of the tripods, candelabra, and other objects
of the same kind which made up the furnishing of the temples
(Figs. 8 1, 82 and 83). This furnishing must have been rich
The crowded cities and narrow territory of Phoenicia left no room
for colossal constructions like those of Egypt and Mesopotamia,
but, on the other hand, a nation of skilful workers and of
merchants through whose hands passed all the commerce of the
Mediterranean, had every facility for accumulating precious
objects of every kind in her sanctuaries. The Phoenicians were
very pious. When we attempt a classification in order of
subject of the epigraphic texts they have left us, we find that by
far the fullest category is that which is made up of votive
inscriptions. These all conclude with the same formula, they
are all constructed after the following model, which comes from
the Maltese monument represented in our Fig. 28.
" To our Lord Melkart, master of Tyre ; the offering of thy
servants Abdosir and his brother Osirsamar, both sons of
Osirsamar, who was the son of Abdosir ; because he has listened
to their voice ; may Jie bless them"
These steles, like the stele of Jehaw-Melek (Fig. 23) and more
than one stele from Carthage (Figs 13, 15, 16 and 192) often
bear on their upper part, above the inscription, a bas-relief
representing sometimes a group of worshippers making offerings
to a god, sometimes a worshipper alone ; in most cases,
however, the latter is understood and the sculptor has been
content to figure the deity only.1 At the apex of the stele
appears an open hand, the symbol of prayer. Some of these
steles have no inscriptions (Figs. 193 and 194). Sometimes they
were not content with a simple stele. The discoveries which
have been made in Cyprus in these latter years have furnished
the elements of instructive comparisons and have helped us to
come to a right opinion on certain monuments which have been
found at intervals on the coast of Syria. In 1873, m a small
grotto near the Maabed of Amrit, among the remains of a con-
struction in which M. Renan recognised all that was left of a
1 One of the most interesting monuments of this class is the stele of Lilybaeum.
Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. No. 138.
THE TEMPLE IN PHOENICIA. 263
temple, a considerable number of broken statues were found,
their heads separated from their bodies. These figures were
cut from the white limestone of Amrit.1 Some of them appear
to be figures of gods. The only torso to which a head still
adheres has been recognised as one of a Hercules with lion-skin
o
FIG. 192. — Votive stele from Carthage. From the Gazette Archeologiqiie.
head-dress. But this is quite an exception. The iconic character
of most of the figures is beyond a doubt.
As these statuettes were found in a grotto within the precincts
of a temple, there is every reason to believe that they once
1 Such details as we possess on the subject of this find arc furnished by a letter
from M. GAII.LARDOT inserted by M. Renan among his Additions et Corrections
(Mission, p. 850).
264 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNU i.\ AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
formed part of the contents of the temple itself. Most likely
they represent people of distinction — princes, perhaps, and priests
—who, in raising their images close to the sanctuary, wished to
FIG. 193. — Votive stele from Sulcis (Sardinia). Height 28 inches. From Crespi.
perpetuate evidence of their piety. This hypothesis is confirmed
by the fact that on the site of the temples of Golgos and
Amathus, a great number of statues, often very well preserved,
have been found, and that their attitude is only to be explained
Fa;. 194. — Votive stele from Sulcis. From Crespi.
in one way. They are both male and female ; their heads
are bound about sometimes with a veil, sometimes with a
crown of flowers ; the pendant hair and beard are dressed with
FIG. 195.— Statue found near Athieno. Limestone. Height 3 feet n inches.
In the New York Museum.
M M
THE TEMPLE IN PHOENICIA.
167
care, and in their right hands they hold a votive offering — a
patera, a dove, a flower, the branch of a tree, or some other
object of the same nature (Figs. 195 and 196). Several in-
scriptions found in Cyprus give us the formula used at the
FIG. 196. — Limestone statue from Cyprus. Height 27^ inches. In the National Library, Paris.
consecration of these figures.1 It has been suggested 'that
perhaps the statues represent the deities to whom these gifts
were offered, rather than the worshipper ; but all doubt appears
1 Corpus Inscriplionum Semiticarum, pars i. Nos. n, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94.
268 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKF.XICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
to be dispelled by a bilingual dedication, in Phoenician and in
Cypriot Greek, in which the Phoenician word meaning statue is
rendered not by dyaX/ta, which would be the right one in
speaking of a divine image, but by dvSptas, which always
denotes the figure of a man.1
In speaking of another figure found at Amrit M. Renan has
already pointed out the connection between the scanty monu-
ments of Phoenician sculpture and the numerous iconic statues
which have been found during excavations at Cyprus, and this
is how he explains the sentiment which led to the creation of
these votive statues : "Must we agree with the hypothesis that
would take these figures for a series of portraits of priests and
priestesses continued through more than one century ? I think
not. The personage represented in each figure seems to me
to be the author of a vow, the donor of an offering made to
the divinity of the temple, the baal haz-zdhakh, or master of
the sacrifice, according to the expression used in the tariffs of
Marseilles and Carthage. This vow, or sacrifice, was soon over,
and its author might fear that it would be soon forgotten. An
inscription would do something to keep its memory green, but a
statue would be much more certain. In causing himself to be
set before the eyes of the god in a material and in an attitude
that would recall unceasingly the sacrifice made and homage
rendered, the worshipper perpetuated the memory of his piety
in the surest way. Such an idea was quite in keeping with the
materialistic and almost commercial religion of Phoenicia, where
a vow was a sort of business transaction, in which a clearly
understood bargain was struck, so to speak, on both sides. We
have, then, in these statues, the figures of pious men who came
in their order to fulfil their vows, and took every precaution to
insure that the liquidation of their debts should be remembered.
The size, material, and workmanship of the statues, depended
upon the circumstances of those by whom they were set up."2
For the safe guarding of these statues, and of the other contents
of the temple and its precincts, a numerous personnel was required.
In a curious inscription recently discovered at Larnaca we find
succinct but authentic information as to how this personnel was
1 Or/ us Inscriptiomtm Semiticamm, pars i. No. 89, and see especially the
observations of M. Ren.in, at page 106, referring to line 2 of the inscription.
- REX.\y, F.erue Arch'colo^i^ue, 2nd series, vol. xxxvii. p. 323.
THE TEMPLE IN PHOENICIA.
271
composed.1 The inscription is written in ink on both sides of a
slab ; it seems to be a fragment from what we may call the ledger
of a Phoenician temple at Kition, which appears to have been
dedicated to Astarte. There are some gaps in it, but, as a whole,
it gives the expenditure for two months, the sums paid to work-
men, to builders and decorators, and the wages or salaries paid to
the officers of the temple. The latter are not arranged in the order
of their dignity, for the inscription is rather a memorandum than
a formal record. The chief officials must have been the sacrificers
and those masters of the scribes who are mentioned in other texts ;
besides them, there were figure porters and men charged with the
care of the veils, or curtains, of the sanctuary, barbers who shaved
the priests and to whom certain incisions and amputations, which
formed part of the rites, were entrusted, parasites, or people who
lived at the table of the god, singing women, and women whose
persons were the vehicles of worship ; for the sacred prostitutions
to which we have already alluded were practised here as in all
Astarte's temples.
Traces of this rite are to be found in several artificial grottoes
in the neighbourhoods of Gebal and Tyre, which are dubbed by
M. Renan " prostitution caves." These have in their further wall
a niche for the statue of the goddess, and along each side seats and
benches cut in the rock. Their purpose is shown by the existence
of numerous little triangles cut in the walls, in which archaeologists
agree to recognize a summary representation of the female pudenda,
which Herodotus tells us he himself saw cut on the rocks in this
very neighbourhood.3
In spite of the licentious nature of their rites the Phoenicians
were an orderly and far-seeing people. Among the longest and
most interesting documents they have left us, we may point out
especially those texts engraved upon stone slabs which are known
among epigraph ists as the Tariffs of Marseilles and Carthage?
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. 86, A and B.
2 Mission de Phmicie, pp. 648-652 and 662.
3 HERODOTUS, ii. 106.
4 The Marseilles Tariff is No. 165 in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. That
of the Tariff of Carthage is not yet fixed (December, 1883). The latter, however, is
nothing but a repetition, with a few slight alterations, of the former. It would appear
that an identical tariff was adopted for all the temples of the Phosnician rite,
whether they were in the metropolis or in one of the colonies. The Tariff of Marseilles
runs to 21 lines; that of Carthage has but n, and those considerably mutilated.
272 HISTORY or ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
The ritual and the cost of each of the customary sacrifices are
there minutely regulated. Such tables must have been fixed up at
the entrance to the temple, where they would at once show the
merchant who landed from some weary voyage what it would
cost him to keep the vows he had made to Melkart, Astarte, or
Tanit, as the case might be. While neglecting nothing that might
content the g(>d, he could then take care that he was not cheated
by the priest ; the Marseilles Tariff specifies, for instance, that the
skin of the animal sacrificed was reserved to the worshipper. The
fees, on the whole, seem to have been high enough, but it is ex-
pressly stipulated that the very poor, who could not afford to provide
a living victim, either bird or quadruped, should have nothing to pay.1
This shows that every facility was given to the poor to bring their
gift of bread, or of those figured animals in stone and terra-cotta
of which so many were found by Cesnola in the ruins at Golgos.0
5 2. — The Temple in Cyprus.
However slight may be his smattering of classic letters, every
reader has heard of those temples of Cyprus in which the vague
but imposing image of the great Nature goddess of the Syrians
was, as it were, gradually condensed into the definite personality
of the Greek Aphrodite.3 The names of the famous shrines of
1 Line 20. 2 CKSXOLA, Cyprus, p. 158.
3 Xo one has yet succeeded, or seems likely to succeed, in explaining the word
Aphrodite by a Greek or Aryan derivation. Its etymology must be sought for in
another quarter, and therefore we have the less hesitation in repeating a conjecture
recently given out by Herr FRITZ HOMMEL, one of the best Assyriologists of Germany.
According to him, Aphrodite is no more than a kind of anagram on Astarte, through
Ashtoret, the name given by the Western Shemites to the Chaldreo-Assyrian Ishtarit.
The Greeks have never had such consonants as sh or/, so that even now they are quite
incapable of pronouncing them, and when they had to adapt their vocal organs to
the name of the Syrian goddess they substituted, perhaps unconsciously, the labial <£
for the sh. It was at the price of this change that the name of the goddess entered
their language and she herself their pantheon. Ashtoret became Aphtoret, then by
an easy permutation Aphrotet. In much later times, again, they deliberately adopted
a new transcription of the Syrian form of the name, and, like their modern descend-
ants when they take words from the Turkish, they replaced the lingual letter by a
pure sibillant, so that Astarte is one of those derivatives due to educated people
which are never so faithful to their prototype as the natural and unconscious modifi-
cations set up by the crowd. It is not uncommon to find terms like this, which,
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 273
Paphos and Amathos, of Idalion and Golgos, occur again and again
in the works of the Greek and Latin poets ; it is to them and to
other temples founded by the Phoenicians, such as those at
Cythera and Eryx, that the goddess of Homer and the lyric poets
Owes her principal Surnames, Kv7rpi:S,Kv7rpta, Kv7rpoyev)]S,Kv7rpoyeveia.
Her temples were frequented down to the very last days of
paganism, and antiquity is better preserved at Cyprus than on the
Syrian coast. With the exception of Larnaca — which stands on
the site of Kition — neither the chief modern towns in the island,
nor its feudal fortresses, were built in the neighbourhood of the old
religious centres, and if the excavations had been undertaken in the
same spirit as those of M. Renan in Phoenicia, and with equal re-
sources, it is likely that important remains of those buildings would
have been found, or, at least, that their plans might have been re-
covered. Even now, and in spite of the confusion caused by those
whose chief aim in exploring was the collection of things for sale to
museums, systematic researches directed by a thoroughly trained
architect would, perhaps, have good results, and we can only
express our surprise that the British Government, now absolute
master of the island in which it has forbidden all private enter-
prise of the kind, should have so long delayed its thorough ex-
ploration. At present our knowledge of the religious architecture
of Cyprus is very slight. At Kition little has been found ; but
recent excavations allow us to determine the site of that temple
which was, perhaps, the first built by the Syrian merchants on that
coast which they were to frequent so long. Until quite recently
there rose at Larnaca a mound or hillock known as Bamboula ;
it stood on the confines of the town, on the edge of the marshy
basin which was all that remained of the ancient port.1 In
though originally descended from a single term, have come to have quite different
meanings. We have no space to quote certain facts pointed out by Herr Hommel
which appear to support his hypothesis ; we must be content with referring our
readers to his note on this subject in the Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie (Fleckeisen,
1882, p. 176 No. 30), under the title Aplirodite-Astarte. He reserves to himself the
right to treat the subject at greater length on some future occasion. We have not
here quoted his words, and we have suggested some points for consideration on
which he is silent, but we have said nothing which appears to us to militate against
his idea. We confess that it seems to us very well founded. It is certain that the
Aphrodite of the Greeks came from the East, and it is reasonable enough to suppose
that she brought her name with her, as well as her rites and attributes.
1 See the plan of Larnaca and its neighbourhood given in Corpus Inscriptionum
Semiiicarum, pars i. p. 35.
VOL. T. N N
274 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
1 880 the English governor caused the hillock to be removed in
order to fill up the marshy hollow beside it, and during the opera-
tion the substructures of buildings with many antique fragments,
and especially terra-cotta figures, strewn about them, were brought
to light. Many signs were present to suggest that the mound had
once supported a temple of Astarte, a temple to which two marble
tablets found in the neighbourhood may have belonged. These
tablets were inscribed with tariffs in the Phoenician language.1
Some Ionic capitals which were sketched by a French architect,
M. Saladin, in the course of a voyage in the East, seem to have
belonged to this temple. We reproduce below his drawing of the
best preserved among them. This fragment belongs, of course, to
a date much later than that of the first temple ; it dates, in fact,
from a time when Greek art had already won a preponderating
FIG. 198. — Capital from Kition, cut from the local stone. Height 18 inches. Drawn by Saladin.
influence at Kition ; but yet it preserves a certain originality.
There are no oves, and the volute is very deeply hollowed,
peculiarities which decided us to reproduce M. Saladin's drawing,
although the capital cannot be presented as an example of
Phoenician art. It may be looked upon, however, as the last of
the series which commences with the far more strange-looking
caps reproduced in our Figs. 51, 52, 53. The classic style was
near its universal triumph, but at the time when this temple was
restored it had still to lay its account with certain local habits and
traditions,
The only temple in the island of which we know anything from
the old writers is the most famous of all, the temple of Paphos.
1 See M. KENAN'S paper on these inscriptions in the Rwue arcJieologique, 2nd
series, vol. xli., 1881, p. 29, and the Corpus Inscriptionum Serniticarum, pars i.
p. 92. Cf. HEUZEY, Catalogue des Figurines, &c., p. 168 and above, p. 271.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 275
During the Jewish war, Titus, as we are told by Tacitus, "was
seized with a desire to visit a sanctuary so frequented by native
and foreign pilgrims." And here the historian digresses for a
moment to describe in a few words " the origin of the worship, the
rites practised in the temple, the form in which the goddess is
adored, a form which is to be found nowhere else." What he says
on the first of these points is insufficient and obscure, but he gives
us a few precise details upon the rules for sacrifices and upon the
image of the goddess, " who is not represented in human form, but
in that of a circular cone-shaped block of stone. The reason for
this shape is unknown." Tacitus adds that "the emperor took
pleasure in contemplating the wealth of the temple and the gifts
which had accumulated in it under the ancient kings, as well as
many antique objects to which the vanity of the Greeks gave an
exaggerated age."
But this can have been no Greek temple in which, towards the
end of the first century of our era, the eye encountered no better
substitute for a statue of the goddess of beauty than a rude block
of stone, perhaps a phallic emblem. Those altars of which
Tacitus speaks, on which, although sacrifices were offered on them
under the open sky, no drop of rain ever fell, were a survival
from that form of worship in the open air which was the first
practised by the Canaanitish tribes. In the temple at Paphos
everything must have borne marked traces of its Syrian origin.
The presence of a conical stone in the place of honour in the
sanctuary was, if we may use such a metaphor, the dominant note ;
but the observant visitor would certainly perceive it echoed in the
general arrangement of the temple, in the costumes of the priests,
and in the rites they imposed on the people.
Elsewhere we find plenty of confirmation of what Tacitus has
told us. Upon a whole series of bronze coins struck under the
Roman Emperors, from Augustus to Macrinus, in the name of the
1 TACITUS, History, ii. 3.
2 "Simulacrum deae non effigie humana ; continuus orbis latiore initio tenuem in
ambitum, metse modo, exsurgens, et ratio in obscuro." M. HAL£VY believes that
he has unravelled the puzzle that baffled Tacitus. At one of the recent sittings of
the Societe asiatique (October i2th, 1883), he expounded the idea that one of the
Semitic names for the divinity, £!, is to be explained by its other primitive signifi-
cance, column ; and the columns which we find in Phoenician temples would be
nothing more than summary representations of the mountain, the earliest fetish
worshipped by the Syrian populations.
276 HISTORY or ART i\ PIKKXICIA AND ITS DHPHNDENCIES.
union of Cypriot towns (*o</<V Ki-rrpiwi'}, an edihce appears which
archaeologists agree in recognizing as the most important temple
on the island, that of Paphos (Fig. 199).' The representation is
very summary, as it always must be in such cases ; it was made to
remind contemporaries of a building which they all knew, not to
help modern archaeologists. In order to get the fullest information
Irom such a document as this, the student must begin by master-
ing the principles upon which the die-sinker proceeds when he has
to represent a work of architecture upon the narrow surface of a
coin ; with a little practice he will learn to read between the lines,
and if not to divine all the arrangements of the building, at least
to understand those hinted at by the engraver, and to restore
much that the latter has been compelled to omit. Here we have
the elevation of a facade in front of which extends a semi-circular
court inclosed by a balustrade. Beyond the court arises a kind
Fir,. 199. -Coin of Cyprus. From Guigniaut.
of pylon with very slender flanking towers. In its upper part
there are small windows, and below them an opening or doorway,
which the engraver seems to have deliberately enlarged in order
to show, in the sanctuary, the rudely fashioned conical stone which
did duty for a statue of the goddess ; on this a head and pair of
arms are roughly indicated. At each side of the quasi-pylon there
is a portico, much lower and with a flat roof. Upon this roof
and in the front inclosure appear some of the sacred cloves of
Aphrodite. Between the angle columns of the portico and the
pylon, two objects which look like candelabra are indicated (see
Figs. 8 1, 82, 83) ; they may have served either for incense, or for
1 We have already figured this same coin on a larger scale (Fig. 58); but the
larger woodcut was not taken from the same example. Between the two there are
slight differences, due to the unequal skill of the engravers employed ; they are
not enough to suggest that they followed different models.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 277
burning resin, in the case of night illuminations.1 Finally in the
upper part of the coin, between the summits of the pylon towers,
hangs the group of the solar disk and the crescent moon.
This is all that we get from the coin. The engraver, in spite of
his narrow space, made a point of introducing the curious emblem
in which the originality of the Paphian worship consisted. He
did some violence to proportion, and placed it in the middle
of his field, and then to increase its importance he enframed it
in that monumental facade which must have seemed so striking
to visitors approaching the temple. But he is so pre-occupied
with this idea that he never thinks of giving any hint as to the
plan of the building, and it is when we attempt to form any guess
at its arrangement that our difficulties begin. Behind the pylon
there may have been a cella divided into naos and pronaos, the
former containing the conical stone. Was this the real arrange-
ment, or should we rather believe that the stone was placed, as at
Byblos, either in the open air or under a simple pavilion sur-
rounded by a colonnade ? We incline towards the latter hypothesis,
which seems to agree better with the feeble indications still to be
traced on the site.
Two plans have been given of these ruins : one was compiled
by Gerhard from the information collected by travellers who
visited the site in the early years of the century (Fig. 200) ;2 the
second by General di Cesnola. Considering. that Cesnola bought
part of the ground and made wide and deep excavations at
several points on the plateau formerly occupied by the temple, the
plan he gives, summary as it is, deserves to be preferred to the
sketches made by hurried travellers ; but we must remember on
1 In several districts of Greece and Asia Minor houses are still lighted by means
of small candelabra fashioned on the same principle as these larger things of the
same kind. A metal dish is supported on a pointed wooden stem, the lower end of
which is driven into the floor of beaten earth. Chips of resinous wood, or &d8i, are
burnt in the dish. Many a time, during my travels in the Levant, have I written
up the notes of my day's work by the light of such a torch.
2 Voyages d'Ali Bey el Abbassi en Afrique et en Asie pendant les Annees 1803-1807
(Paris, 1814, 8vo), vol. ii. pp. 143-145, and plate 34, «, b, c. S. Vox HAMMER,
Topographische Ansichten, 8vo, 1811, vol. ii. pp. 150-152 and corresponding plate.
H. HETSCH, in Munter, Tempel der himmlischen Gottin zu Paphos, plates i., ii., and
p. 30. In the plan we reproduce a must be a peristylar court with a basin (/), b a
second court in which the temple proper stood (c] ; in the latter d is the pavilion
in which this conical stone was placed. The division of the cella into three aisles
corresponds well enough with the representation of the temple figured upon the coins.
278 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the other hand that since the beginning of the century many of
the stones may have been removed by the inhabitants of the
neighbouring village of Kouklia.
Cesnola places in the centre of the plateau a rectangular
mass which represents the substructures of the temple properly
speaking, the building figured upon the coins. The corner stones
are still in place. This parallelogram is inclosed in another, very
much larger and with a massive boundary wall, the foundations of
which still exist at almost every point on its circumference.
These are mostly sunk far beneath the surface, but a few blocks
FIG. 200. — Plan of the remains of the temple at Paphos. From Gerhard.
which still stand above it are of very large size ; one is about
eighteen feet long by nine feet wide. The stones of the temple
itself, though less than this, are still very large. In this we
recognize that Syrian love for huge units of construction which is
so evident in the walls of Jerusalem and Arvad, and in the famous
temples of Baalbek.
The temple itself was 224 feet long by 165 wide, and the outer
inclosure 700 feet by 630 ; these measurements are furnished
by Cesnola, but he does not guarantee their minute accuracy.1
The outer wall was pierced by doorways, and in one the marks of
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, pp. 210 — 213.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS.
279
hinges may still be traced. The width of its opening is eighteen
feet, enough for the passage of a crowd. The courtyard must
have been surrounded by colonnades, under which the faithful
could take refuge during the burning noons of summer ; even if
no vestiges of them were ever to come to light we should have
no doubt of their former existence.
It is not so easy to determine the exact character of the inner
inclosure or structure. Was it a cella, like that of a Greek
temple ? neither analogy nor an examination of the existing ruins
point to such a thing. We have every reason to believe that, in
its general arrangement, the temple at Paphos resembled that at
Byblos, which was built by the same architects in honour of the
..1
7l,i3S ->
FIG. 201. — Plan of the remains of the temple at Paphos. According to Cesnola.
same deity ; now, in the views of the latter temple which we
find upon coins (Fig. 19), the sacred stone is standing in the
open air, in the middle of a peristylar court. WThy should it not
have been the same at Paphos, where the climate was certainly
dryer than on the Syrian coast ? Two things confirm this idea.
One is the mention by Tacitus of those altars which were never
moistened by a drop of rain although they stood in the open air.
Secondly, the dimensions of the temple accord ill with the notion
of a covered building. In order to carry its roof a number of
internal supports must have been introduced, and of these some
traces would be sure to exist, either bases still in situ, or capitals
strewn among the ruins. On the other hand, the dimensions
280 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
given would do very well for a large courtyard with an idol in the
middle and a portico about it.
\Ye should, then, be inclined to guess the temple at Paphos to
have been something like this : in the centre the conical stone,
surrounded by a balustrade, and perhaps raised on a pedestal ;
around it a double Trept/SoXr/, as the Greeks called it. The smaller
and more richly decorated of these inclosed a court into which,
so far as we can gather, the faithful were only allowed to penetrate
under the guidance of a priest, after having paid certain fees and
accomplished certain rites. On the other hand the external court,
with its wide doorways, was open to every coiner. In both courts,
but especially in the inner one, would be ranged those votive
monuments whose richness and variety made such an impression
on Tacitus. We know that votive statues were not wanting,
although they have nearly all been consumed in the limekiln, for
both Hammer and Cesnola found numerous pedestals, on some of
which inscriptions were still traceable.1
On lower ground and nearer the sea, Cesnola found the remains
of a smaller rectangular temple, which may, as he suggests, have
been raised to mark the spot where the goddess first set foot on
the island ; in that case it would have been the first station for the
pilgrims who came to Cyprus to visit the greater sanctuary. The
only remains of the building are two pyramidal monoliths of a
brown granite which is nowhere to be found on the island. Their
bases are very deeply sunk, and their total height is about nineteen
feet. They are each pierced about half way up with a hole of
considerable diameter.2
In presence of these monoliths, we are struck by a resemblance
between them and certain objects on the money struck by the
union of Cyprian towns. The building represented on the coins in
question is simpler than the one we have described above. It
is nothing but a pair of uprights supporting a roof or architrave,
beneath which stands the betyle with a dove on its summit. On
each side of the doorway, and on the same stylobate, stands a
conical stone (Fig. 202). May not the monoliths which now
stand on the sea-shore at Paphos have afforded a model for these
1 HAMMER, Topographische Ansichten, pp. 179-183. CESXOLA, Cyprus, p. 212.
2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 214. See also p. 189, where some more cippi of the same
form are mentioned. It is curious that even among the modern peasants there
subsist certain superstitious beliefs as to the power of these ancient stones.
THE TK.MPLE IN CYPRUS.
281
latter objects ? It is difficult to say ; but at least the motive is the
same in both cases.
Neither from medals nor ancient authors do we learn anything
about the temples at Idalion and Golgos, but as they were smaller
than the great building at Paphos, and as they left no ruins
standing above the ground to draw the attention of destroyers,
they have been preserved to our own clay, and when they were
disinterred by MM. Lang and Cesnola in 1866-1869, they gave
up to science a splendid booty in statues, bronzes, terra-cottas,
Greek and Phoenician inscriptions, coins, jewels, &C.1 Unhappily
these excavations were made in such a way that they are of very
little use to the historian of architecture.
Mr. Lang discovered a temple at Dali (Idalion) and does not
give its plan ; he does not even tell us anything as to the condition
of the site on which he found such a treasure. As for Cesnola,
who seems to have ransacked two separate temples at Golgos, his
FIG. 202. — Coin of Cyprus. From C.erhanl.
attention never seems to have been turned to the remains of
antique construction. In spite of all probabilities and the formal
declaration of an intelligent witness, namely, Mr. Lang, who
watched the labourers of his friend and rival at work, he denies
the very existence of what seems to have been the older of the
two temples.2 As for the other, we certainly have a sketch of its
1 In Mr. LANG'S book (Cyprus, its History, its Present Resources and Future Pros-
pects, i vol. 8vo, London, 1878), excavations and archaeology occupy but very, little
space; most of his attention is given to questions of agricultural and political economy.
Most of the monuments disentombed by him have gone to enrich the collections in
the British Museum. See also an account of Mr. Lang's discoveries in G. PERROT,
Lllede Cypre (Revue des deux Mondes, ist Fe'vrier, 1879, pp. 579, 580, 584, and 585).
2 This temple must have been circular according to Mr. Lang. The great statue
of Hercules which was found in it suggests that it was consecrated to a god, Melkart,
no doubt, who came in the course of ages to be confused with the Greek Herakles.
See Mr. LANG'S letter in the Revue archeologique, and series, vol. xxiii. p. 366.
Ceccaldi accepts all his conclusions.
VOL. I. O ()
1 1 [STORY OF ART IN PIKKNMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
plan (Fig. 204). but one made in such a way that it leaves many
questions unanswered which might have been set at rest once for
all bv a few accurate observations taken at the right time.
IMC;. 203. — The hill of Paphos, remains of a temple in the foreground. From Cesnola.
From this sketch and from the evidence of G. Colonna Ceccaldi,
evidence which would be more valuable than it is, but for the fact
a a
a a
a 0
a
a
E3
I'K;. 204. — I'lan of temj>le at Golgos. From Cesnola.
that at the time of his visit many of the exploring trenches had
become filled up, we gather the following data.1
1 On the whole question of this temple see CESNOLA, Atti della reale Academia
delle Srienze di Torino, vol. vi. 1870, 1871, pp. 534 et seq., and Cyprus, ch. v. See
too CECCALDI, Monuments, pp. 39-51.
THE TEMPLE ix CYPRUS. 283
Like that of Paphos, this temple was rectangular. It was about
sixty-one feet long by thirty wide.1 Neither here nor at Paphos
was the temple oriented as it was in Greece. The two narrow
sides of the rectangle faced north and south. We cannot tell
through which side the principal door was pierced. Two large
doorways, one slightly larger than the other, may, however, be
traced in the northern and eastern walls ; the upper parts of all
the walls have disappeared ; it would seem that, as in Assyria,
stone was only used for the lower parts. No trace of an outside
inclosure has been found. A broken cone found by Ceccaldi, in
the middle of the temple, seems to indicate that the goddess was
here represented by a symbol like that of Paphos (Figs. 205 and
206). No remains of columns but a few capitals in the stone
of the country were encountered. At several points within the
site, votive figures carved from the same material were picked up.
Some of these represented women suckling children, others cows
performing a like office for their calves. One much damaged
group is composed of four figures ; one of these holds a new-
born child, while the mother lies stretched upon a sort of couch,
her face still drawn by the agonies of childbirth, and her head
upheld by an attendant.'2 The community of subject which links
together most of these little sculptures confirms the idea suggested
by the presence of the cone, that the goddess of the sanctuary was
one of love and generation, that is to say, a form of the Semitic
Astarte. She must have been invoked with no less frequency
than the deity who gave health and prolonged life. In the same
place detached members of human bodies modelled in clay or
carved in stone have been found ; these, of course, are thank-
1 We reproduce Cesnola's plan, but without any desire to exaggerate its authority ;
it differs from the plan given by the same explorer in the account of his explorations
at Athieno addressed to the Academy of Turin. If we test the two by the same
scale none of the measurements coincide. In the plan presented to the Academy,
which is reproduced by DOELL (Die Sammlung Cesnola in the Memoires de V Academic
de Saint- Petersbourg, yth series, vol. xix. No. 4), there are columns against the door
jambs which have disappeared in the map given in his Cyprus. A much simpler
plan than the latter is given by CECCALDI (Monuments antiques de Cypre, p. 41) ; it
shows fewer column bases in the interior, and no shafts or pilasters against the wall.
To which of all these documents is our confidence due ? We prefer that given in
our Fig. 204, because it best corresponds to the double description given by Cesnola
and Ceccaldi.
2 CESNOLA. Cyprus, p. 158.
284 HISTORY OK ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
offerings for cures wrought by the divinity. Among them occur
arms and hands, legs, feet, and the reproductive organs.1
FIGS. 205, 206. Elevation of a cone found at Athieno and section of its lower part.
The sacred cone did not have this inclosure all to itself.
There were numerous pedestals, each supporting a statue. Most
1 The Cesnola Collection of Cypriote Antiquities, a Descriptive and Pictorial Atlas
(3 vols. folio, James Osgoocl, Boston, 1884), vol. i. plates xxvii., xviii. and xix. We have
borrowed freely from this fine work, in which all the monuments brought from
Cyprus by General di Cesnola are reproduced with a care and fidelity which does
honour to the American publisher. We can never thank Messrs. Cesnola and
Osgood too much for the liberality with which they put their plates at our service,
long before they were published. The work comprises 450 plates, a third of which
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS.
2S;
of these were set against the walls ; as many as seventy-two
were counted along the eastern side.1 Other larger pedestals,
each supporting two statues placed back to back (Fig. 207),
divided the hall lengthwise into five parallel aisles. The pave-
ment consisted of slabs of Cyprian limestone. The statues were
found lying on the earth, face downwards for the most part,
under a thick covering of rubbish, which appeared to consist
chiefly of the washings of crude brick hardened into a kind of
cement, out of which it was difficult to disengage the broken
sculptures.
Ceccaldi, who studied all that was left of the structure both on
the actual site and at the American consulate, gives the following
ideal restitution of the Golgos temple : " The temple was built
mainly of sun-dried bricks, which formed four walls standing on
Fu;. 207. — Pedestal for two statues. Height I5i inches ; length 46 inches.
stone foundations. These walls were lined, like those of the
modern Cyprian peasant's house, with a white or coloured water-
proof stucco. . . . Wooden pillars with stone capitals upheld
a ridge roof, of which the slope was so slight as to form
practically a fiat terrace, like the roofs still in use in the island.
This roof consisted of pieces of timber carefully jointed ; over
these mats and reeds were spread, and over those, again, a thick
layer of beaten earth, which offered a thorough resistance both to
are in colour, while the rest are heliogravures. Each plate will be accompanied by
a descriptive notice. The price of the whole is 150 dollars. According to the
prospectus, the first volume should contain the objects in marble, stone, and alabaster,
all statues colossal and otherwise, statuettes, busts, heads, bas-reliefs, votive offerings,
and sarcophagi. In the second will be found objects in bronze, silver, gold, rock-
crystal and glass, and precious stones. The third will be reserved for ceramic objects
and inscriptions.
1 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 10.
286 HISTORY OF Airr IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
wet and he.it. The outside ot the temple of Golgos must, then,
have been very simple to look at. In the inside, which was
lighted only from the wide doorways, stood a silent population of
statues, their cheeks and robes heightened with colour, and in
their midst the symbolic cone. Pavilion-shaped lamps of stone
cast a dim light into the darker corners, where the long lines of
ex-votos hung upon the painted walls.1'
Purely conjectural as this description must be in many of its
details, as a whole it is probable enough ; but the chief question
after all never seems to have suggested itself to the explorers,
and that is whether the building discovered by Cesnola was the
temple itself, or only one of its dependencies. PhcL'nicia, no
doubt, like Greece and Egypt, may have had temples built on
different models, but it is singular that this temple of Golgos, as
it is described to us, should afford so wide a variation from all
the types of Semitic temple with which we are acquainted.
There is neither a great courtyard surrounded with porticoes, as
at Amrit, at Byblos, and Paphos, nor a building in which, as in
the temples of Jerusalem and the Nile valley, we may distinguish
a sanctuary and a pronaos, a holy place and a holy of holies.
Finally, taking the plan given as correct, where, in this nave
encumbered with statues, are we to rind a place for the divinity
of the temple, a place where she would be well in view, as she
appears to have been in the sanctuaries of Byblos and Paphos ?
We are scarcely inclined to see the goddess in the cone we have
figured (Fig. 205) ; the latter is little more than a yard in height,
and must have been altogether crushed by the statues, some ot
them seven feet high, which stood in serried ranks about it.
Where, then, are we to look for the real representative of the
goddess, and for its place ?
There is one way of getting over the difficulty, and that is
by supposing that the building in question was not the temple
itself, but one of its dependencies, a covered hall raised for the
express purpose of receiving the votive offerings and securing to
them a greater degree of safety than they could enjoy in the
open air. Thus we find on the coin of Byblos, side by side with
the great court in which the cone stands, a small closed cella
which certainly belongs to the same 'whole (Fig. 19). The
temple itself may well have been so constructed that it has left
1 Monuments antiques de Cvfre, pp. 47, 48.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS.
287
fewer traces than the thick- walled treasure-house in which these
votive statues were protected from the weather, but even now,
after De Vogue, Duthoit, and Cesnola, and the peasants of
Athieno, have each and all turned over the soil, remains may
yet exist which, if rightly questioned, would confirm or confute
the hypothesis we have here ventured to put forward.
The temple is generally accompanied by its diminutive, by
what we should call a chapel. In a curious little terra-cotta
model found at Dali (Fig. 208) we may, perhaps, be allowed to
recognize a copy of one of these chapels. It represents a small
square building with a doorway ornamented by an isolated,
lotus-headed shaft on each side, and a flat shelf, or rudimentarv
I'n;. 208. — Model of a small temple in terra-cotta. Louvre. Height Si inch*.
pent-house, above. In the doorway stands a kind of wToman-
headed bird, and two more women's faces peer from small
windows in the sides of the model. The occurrence of the
anthropoid bird suggests that the little building is funerary in its
character, but there are things about it which also hint that the
artist modelled his work on some building with which he was
familiar. These are the shafts already mentioned and a number
of small circular cavities which can hardly represent anything but
holes for pigeons, the sacred bird of Astarte.
We are also inclined to recognize Phoenician chapels in two
chambers built of huge, roughly-dressed blocks, which still exist at
Larnaca and in the neighbourhood of the prison of Salamis, the
HISTORY 01 ART IN PIICKNKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
most powerful ot the Greek cities in the island. The first-named
is known as the Panaghia Phancromcni and is used as an oratory ;
the latter is called St. Catherine s Prison. The first travellers who
mention these buildings thought they were tombs,1 but that idea
has been discredited by the results of excavations at the Panaghia
Phancromcni ;- the floor of the little building has been completely
cleared, and in our Figs. 209 and 210 we give a plan and per-
spective of it as it is now. It consists of a vestibule (v) and a
covered chamber (11). In the vestible the huge blocks used in the
rest of the structure (M) are replaced by smaller stones (T). It is
impossible to say whether the building was originally underground,
I-'iu. 209. --The I'anujliin I'lumeromeni. Plan.
or whether the earth about it is the result of later accumulations
(c). The covered chamber had a door to it, for the grooves into
which it fitted are still to be clearly traced. The roof was formed
of two huge masses of rock whose lower surfaces were cut into a
flat arch. In all this there was nothing to militate against the idea
of a tomb, but on clearing the floor of the chamber from the masses
of earth and stone with which it was encumbered a circular basin
appeared in the middle, in which a spring of water began to rise
as soon as the beaten mass which held it down was removed.
Now, what could a spring have to do in a tomb ? Where is such a
1 Ross, Reise auf den Griechischen Inseln., vol. iv. p. 119. CESNOLA, Cyprus,
p. 49-
- MAX OHNEFALSCH RICHTER, Ein altes Bauwerk bei Larnaca (Archaologische
Zeitung, 1881), p. 311 and plate 18.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS.
289
thing to be found in any known necropolis ? It is more natural to
suppose that this was a public fountain, perhaps with a religious
prestige. From the neighbouring port women and sailors could
come to fill their amphorae, to gossip in the coolness of the heavy
roof, and, before they went, to offer up their prayers to the kindly
deity, the nymph of the spring, who caused the pellucid water to
bubble up just where its freshness would be most welcome. Even
now, in spite of all the centuries that have rolled away, the old
Phoenician oratory is a place of pilgrimage for the Greek peasants ;
FIG. 210. — The Panaghia Phaneromeni. Perspective.
they seek it as an oracle, and the Virgin mother of Christ plays a
part in their popular superstitions which would better suit Astarte.
" A rough oil lamp and a few matches are placed in the middle of
the little apartment. When a lover wishes to know whether his love
is returned, he lights the lamp at nightfall ; if it be still burning at
daybreak, his trouble is at an end ; if not, he must console himself
as best he can."
In all the temples water was placed within easy reach of the
1 DE MARICOURT, Saint-Cyr et Jerusalem, 8vo, p. 145.
VOL. I.
P P
2oo HISTORY OK ART IN 1'im NICIA AND i rs DKI-KNMM.NCII.S.
faithful. Like lire, water purifies ; it takes away blemishes. The
vessels which held the water required for the ritual ablutions was
placed near the temple doors, like the beuiticr in a Romish church.
Close to one entrance to the buildings which he describes as the
temple of Golgos, General Cesnola found one of these vessels still
in place. It was surrounded by a wreath of ivy, and its diameter
was seven feet one inch. But the most curious object of the kind
is the vessel known as the Amathus vase. This is a great basin
of porous limestone, a depressed spheroid in shape, with a small
Kir.. 21 1. --The Amathus vase. Louvre. Height 6 feet 2 inches.
Greatest diameter 9 feet 2 inches.
base and a very low neck about a circular mouth (Fig. 211).
Four ornamental handles rise at regular intervals near the upper
edge of the vessel. All four of these handles are shaped like
moulded arches ; they each rise from two palmettes and inclose
the figure of a bull turned to the spectator's right. The heads of
these bulls have been intentionally mutilated. This monument,
which has been in the Louvre ever since 1866, is not the only
one of the kind.1 Another was found close beside it ; this second
1 M. Vocui took possession of the Amathus vase in the name of France in 1862.
In the same year a ship of war was despatched at the instance of the Directeur des
Tin-; TKM'PLE IN CYPRUS. 291
example is higher than the first by sixteen inches, but it is narrower
at the base, and its handles are decorated only with a simple
moulding. The upper lines of both vessels were originally on the
same level ; the rock on which they stood was cut so as to make
up for the inferior height of the one we have figured. The taller
vase was so much broken that it was left where it was found, and
its fragments still point out to travellers the site of what was once,
no doubt, the chief temple of Amathus.
The \veight of the smaller of these two cisterns, that is, the one
in Paris, is estimated at 14,000 kilogrammes, or rather less than
fifteen tons. They must both have been shaped where they stand
out of some block of limestone rising up above the plain. Even
under such conditions the task would be no light one, but it is easy
to understand why the effort was made. The hill on which the
temple stood is destitute of springs, and as far as the eye can
reach on every side there is no running wrater ; and yet the
purifications of the law had to be accomplished.1 In the wet
season these cisterns were filled with rain-wrater, but during the
rest of the year water had to be carried from the nearest spring
or from the city reservoirs, on the backs of horses and donkeys.
Large amphorse, hung on each side of the beast and stopped with
a plug of grass or leaves, were used for the purpose, just as they
are to-day.
The mouth of these vessels was often placed so high th^t it
could hardly be reached without steps, which might be either
detached, and movable, or adherent to the basin, and cut out of the
same block. The latter arrangement is shown in a small model
o
in the Louvre (Fig. 212), which is, no doubt, a votive offering
presented by some faithful worshipper to whom the cost of a larger
vessel was prohibitive.2
Musccs to bring it away. Thanks to the care and skill of an officer named Magen,
the difficult operation of its removal was accomplished with perfect success, and the
vase, after a visit to Marseilles and Havre, whence it travelled by a flat barge on the
Seine, was placed in the Louvre on July 13, 1866. See MAGEX, Le Vase cTAma-
thonte, Relation de son Transport en France in the Recueil des Traraiix de la Socieie
a" Agriculture, Sciences et Arts d Agen.
1 In the ceremonies attending a pilgrimage to Mecca the water of the well Zemzem
plays no inconsiderable part. The pilgrims both drink it and wash in it ; a number
of people gain their living by drawing the water and distributing it among them.
2 Attention has already been called to this little object by M. HEUZEV (Bulletin
de la Societe des Antiquaires de France, 1871, pp. 45, 46). The Greeks called such
a vessel as this
2Q- HISTORY OF ART IN PIIU.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
There can he little doubt but that some cisterns were of bronze.
The famous brazen sea, made for Solomon by Phoenician work-
men, was neither more nor less than one of these vessels ; '
moreover, in the very cistern on which we have been dwelling it
is easy to recognize the imitation of a bronze original. The
Fir.. 212. —Small model of a cistern, 3^ inches high. Louvre.
handles especially are characteristic (Fig. 213). As they were
only for ornament they are not pierced so as to allow the
passage of the hand, but in their details it is not difficult to
trace what may be called the true spirit of metal design. Look
for instance at the two palmettes and the quasi-volutes which
Fi<;. 213. — Handle of the Amathus vase.
unite them to the ends of the handles ; they embody one of the
favourite motives of the worker in metal. Bronze handles from
vessels that have disappeared are common in all the great
museums of Europe, and if we cast our eyes over any of the
series thus formed we shall find more than one example of this
1 i KIN<;S, vii. 25; 2 CHROMCI.I.S. iv. 4.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 293
very palmette. In this instance the imitation is so faithful that
upon the stone (between the palmette proper and the volute) we
may distinguish the rounded head of the rivet which, in the
bronze, was used to attach the handle to the body of the vessel.1
The appearance of the bull in the hollow of the handle is
natural enough. Both in Egypt and Assyria he was a favourite
object for the beauty of his form and for the ideas he symbolized.
At Jerusalem the brazen sea was supported on the backs of
twelve bulls.
It is in its proportions and in the motives of its decoration that
the oriental character of the Amathus vase resides, for it does not
date apparently from any very remote antiquity. By their execution,
the bulls in the handles offer a marked analogy with the animal
engraved on the fine Cypriot coins attributed by the Due de
Luynes to Salamis, and to about the year 500 B.C. ;'2 we reproduce
one here so that our readers may judge of the resemblance for
themselves (Fig, 214).
FIG. 214. — Coin of Cyprus.
Among the contents of those Cypriot temples whose treasures
excited the admiration of Roman travellers, thrones were certainly
included ; chairs of stone or of bronze incrusted with eold and
o
silver. One of the former was found by Cesnola on the site of
the temple of Golgos ; 3 he gives no drawing of it, but he figures
two steps of the same material which were found close to the
chair. Both are ornamented on their anterior faces with bas-reliefs
1 DE LONGPERIER had already called attention to this ; we have made considerable
use of his paper on the Amathus vase and have borrowed his drawing {Musee
Napoleon ///.), pi. xxxiii.
2 DE LUYNES, Numismatique et Inscriptions Cypriotes, 1852, p. 19, and plate iii.
I-I2.
3 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 159. The remains of a bronze throne were found by
Cesnola in one of those chambers in which the treasure of the temple of Curium was
stored (Cyprus, p. 355). Lions' heads and paws and bulls' heads formed part of its
ornament ; their arrangement may be easily divined from the analogy of Assyrian
pieces of furniture of the same kind (Art in Clialdwa and Assyria, Figs. 193,
199, 200, 203).
294 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKF.NKTA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
enframed between two large rosettes ; the smaller of the two
shows a lion bringing down a stag ; the larger, the fabulous
Chinucra, whose home was placed by the Greeks in Lycia, the
country that- faced the northern shore of Cyprus1 (Fig. 215).
Here too both animals and rosettes are of oriental aspect.
The wealth accumulated in the Cyprian temples is proved not
only by the words of Tacitus and the variety of objects discovered
at various points in the island, but also by the famous Treasure of
Curium, which was found intact by General Louis Palma di Cesnola,
a discovery which is enough by itself to render his name illustrious.
Never, perhaps, has explorer been more fortunate or more skilful
in making the best use of his £Ood fortune. We have inven an
O O O
account of the explorations elsewhere, and we must wait till we
come to speak of Phoenician jewelry and work in the precious
metals before we describe many of the objects in detail ; at
FIG. 215. — Stone step. F'rom Cesnola.
present we have only to draw attention to a curious architectural
arrangement which should be studied by all future explorers in
the island.
One of the temples at Curium had a true crypt (Fig-. 216),
which was reached by a staircase leading to a low and narrow
corridor (A A) ; the latter gave access to four semi-circular chambers
(c, i), E, F) hollowed in the limestone rock and communicating
with one another by doorways (B B). Beyond the last of these
chambers there was another narrow^ corridor, but the air in it was
so bad that the excavators had to retire without exploring it to
the end.
The first three chambers were all the same size ; i -\ feet 8
\j
inches high, by 23 feet 3 inches long, and 21 feet 4 inches wide.
The fourth (F) was a little smaller. The booty found in these
1 See HOMER, Iliad, vi. 181.
THE TEMPLE ix CYPRUS.
-95
four rooms surpassed all hope. Never had so many jewels, in
which the materials were so rich and the styles so varied, been
before encountered. There were bracelets of massive gold, two
of them weighing each but little short of a pound ; several others
weighed from ten to twelve ounces. Gold was found, indeed, in
profusion and in all kinds of forms : rings, ear-rings, amulets, little
boxes and bottles, hair-pins, necklaces ; silver was still more
abundant in jewelry and in dishes ; neither was electrum, the
alloy of gold and silver, absent ; objects of rock crystal, of carnation,
of onyx, of agate, of every variety of hard and precious stone,
and of glass, were found, as well as soft stone cylinders, statuettes
of terra-cotta, earthenware vases and bronze lamps, candelabra,
FIG. 216. — Plan of the crypt at Curium. Erom Cesnoln.
chairs, vases, weapons, &c. A certain order was perceptible in the
way this treasure was stored. The jewels of gold were found
chiefly in the first chamber ; in the second the silver dishes were
ranged on a shelf cut in the rock about eight inches above the
floor. Unhappily these were much more seriously injured by
oxidization than the gold, and from the mass of metal that fell
into dust as soon as touched, only a small number of those bowls
or cups, which have lately roused so much curiosity among archae-
ologists, were saved. The third room contained a few bronze
lamps and fibulae, some alabaster vases, and a great number of
earthenware vessels and statuettes. In the fourth there were
bronze utensils, with several of copper and iron among them, and,
"•96 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNK IA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
in the partly explored passage at the end seven bronze kettles or
cauldrons.
Even more precious, however, than the materials employed is
the great variety of methods in \vhich they are used, showing that
all these objects are by no means identical in their local origin.1
Some scarabs in steatite seem to be of Egyptian provenance ;
upon one of them we may recognize the oval of Thothmes III.
A certain number of cylinders are certainly Assyrian and Chal-
dajan. Several, by their symbols and cuneiform inscriptions,
appear to belong to the epoch of the Sargonids, that is, to the
seventh century before our era. Others, to which by their
execution, symbolism, and mounting, a Phoenician origin may
be certainly ascribed, are very numerous. Many of the intaglios
may fairly be placed among the oldest and most curious produc-
tions of the glyptic artists of Greece. The jewels proper often
show much invention, combined with an astonishing finesse and
delicacy of execution ; some of them are so graceful that they
deserve a place among the masterpieces of the oriental goldsmiths,
and of those of Greece in her archaic period.
We shall have an opportunity hereafter of studying these things
more carefully. Our present object is to give an idea of the
number, value, and variety of the treasures contained in this
curious depot. They were not placed there to amuse amateurs
or to edify archaeologists, but none the less do they constitute a
veritable museum, in which artists may compare the styles of
various schools, may admire fine workmanship and grasp the
secret of the processes by which it is turned out. Until these
chambers were explored we only knew the temple treasures from
those documents engraved upon marble, in which an inventory of
the votive objects contained in some of chief Grecian sanctuaries,
at Athens for example, and Delos, is drawn up. Succinct as they
are, these lists enabled us to realise how greatly those sacred
collections must have favoured the development of art and taste ;
how much more, then, should we be able to learn from the objects
themselves, now that they can be closely examined, weighed,
and described !
The value of the temple collections as schools of art can
1 See, in the appendices to Cyprus, the description given by C. W. KING, of
Trinity College, Cambridge, of the intaglios upon metal and stone contained in
this treasure (The Rings and Gems in the Treasure at Curium}.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 29;
nowhere have been greater than in Cyprus ; nowhere can these
exhibitions, as we may fairly call them, have offered a greater
variety than in the shrines of an island which the Greeks began to
frequent at a very early period, shrines which were thus loaded for
centuries with the gifts of two different races. Egypt, Chaldrea,
and Assyria had no secrets from the Phoenicians ; in their countless
voyages, the latter must have become acquainted with everything
those countries produced which could by any means be turned to
the honour of their own gods, and a little later, when the
originality of the Greek genius began to assert itself, visitors from
Greece came in their turn to offer the best works of their native
artisans to those gods wrhom they were seeking to appropriate to
their own use. If the treasure of the great Paphian sanctuary had,
by some happy chance, been preserved to us, what a variety of
styles, what a number of curious and even marvellous works of art
we should have found! It would have sufficed to arrange the
objects in some kind of order, to have before us a history of
ancient art, as told by the monuments themselves, which would
have enabled us to follow the happy borrowings and fertile
contacts which so greatly helped the task of the Greeks, and
saved them so much priceless time.
This good fortune has been denied us. The temple whose
treasure was recovered by General di Cesnola was less celebrated
and therefore less rich than that of Paphos. Perhaps it w?s not
even the principal temple of Curium. That city could boast of a
sanctuary of Apollo which, according to what Strabo says of it,
must have enjoyed a certain importance ; l but according to the
evidence gathered by General di Cesnola, it is not unlikely that
its site was at a different point in the area occupied by the city,
and far enough from the ruins the subtructures of which had
such a delightful surprise in store.2 In that case we do not even
know the character and name of the god to whom Cesnola's temple
was consecrated. We are told that Curium was a Greek city, an
Argive colony ; 3 it is certain that the Greek element won the
upper hand there in time ; but tradition said that its founder was
a son of Cineras,4 and to Greek annalists Cineras was a personifi-
cation of the Phoenician race. It would seem possible, therefore,
1 STRABO, xiv. vi. 3. 2 CESXOLA, Cyprus, pp. 342, 343.
3 STRABO, xiv. vi. 3 HERODOTUS, v. 113.
4 STEFHANVS BVZANTINUS, s. v. Km'pior.
VOL. I. Q Q
298 HISTORY OF ART IN PHCENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
that a Phoenician settlement preceded the Argive colony at
Curium, and that long after the Greeks had taken possession of
the place it had a numerous Semitic population. This conjecture
is to a certain extent confirmed by the fact that in the fifth century,
when the chief Grecian cities in the island rebelled against Darius,
Stesenor, king of Curium, betrayed the national cause and frater-
nized with the Phoenician kings of the south-west and the Persian
army.1 However this may be, we find that at Curium, although a
few objects, such as a fine terra-cotta vase and some jewels and
engraved stones, are Greek in their origin, the great mass of the
treasure is of oriental, i.e. of Cypriot and Phoenician, manufacture.
The intaglios in metal and. pietra-dura form one of the richest and
most interesting sections of the collection, and by far the larger
number of them are of Assyrian, Egyptian, or Phoenician work-
manship. From this we may fairly conclude that the influence of
Greek taste had scarcely begun to make itself felt in the island,
even in many of the Greek colonies, when the vault was closed.
Why and when did the closure take place ? This is a difficult
question to answer, but it is one which the archaeologist cannot
pass over in silence.
We agree with General di Cesnola that the treasure cannot as
a rule have been kept in the four chambers in which it was found.2
These are paved with round blueish pebbles set in a bed of
cement, beneath which there is a layer of sand. This method of
making a floor is still in use in the better houses in the island.
But in spite of it the room at Curium must always have been very
damp ; most of the vases and other utensils of copper or silver
have been reduced to dust. And when a faithful worshipper
offered either his own image or some object of value to his deity,
it was not that it might be put away in a subterranean cellar,
where no one would see it and where it might be forgotten by
the god himself. Even in those days men liked their piety and
generosity to bring them immediate honour. When Eteandros,
king of Paphos, consecrated two heavy golden bracelets (Fig. 217),
in the temple of Curium, and engraved his name and title upon
them in Cypriot characters,3 his intention was that his name
1 HERODOTUS, v. 113.
2 CESNOLA, Cyprus, p. 305.
3 The inscription is hardly perceptible in our woodcut because it is traced in the
interior of the circle, where the shadow comes.
THE TEMPLE IN CYPRUS. 299
should be read by those who visited the sanctuary, and that his
offering should be placed before the eyes of the god to whom it
was presented. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that these four
chambers with their connecting passage formed a crypt or hiding
place in which the more valuable property of the temple could be
concealed on any sudden alarm.1 They were cut in the living
rock and covered by the flooring of the temple. The only access
was by a low and narrow passage, which could easily be filled up
with earth ; the whole arrangement was well contrived to protect
the treasures of the god against a sudden surprise, against the
impatient violence of soldiers flushed with victory.
We know too little of the internal history of Cyprus to be able
to say at what moment and by fear of what danger the priests of
FIG. 217. — Gold bracelet. Weight 449 grammes. From Cesnola.
the temple were driven to bury their valuables. The struggle
with Persia in 500 suggests itself. Curium entered into the
coalition of cities associated with the revolt of Ionia, and when
she heard that Darius had passed considerable forces into the
island with the help of the Phoenician fleet, she may well have
taken the alarm and placed her treasures beyond the reach of
profanation. She did not yet suspect that her king, Stesenor,
would buy his own pardon and that of his subjects by treason on
the field of battle. The first difficulty this explanation meets with
1 In Greece the temple of Delphi had underground cellars which were used for
the same purpose. Strabo tells us that, during the sacred war, Onomarchus sent men
down there to bring away the treasures hidden in the crypts ; but the earth quaked
and the terrified workmen abandoned their task before they had well begun it
(ix. iii. 8).
300 HISTOKV OK ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
lies in the fact that the treasure was not restored to its place in the
temple. That so many priceless objects should have been left
neglected is only to be explained, so far as we can see, by suppos-
ing that the town was taken and sacked, and that all those officers
of the temple who knew of the secret hiding-place and its contents
were slain. But from what Herodotus tells us as to the part
played by Curium in that campaign, we cannot believe that such
a disaster should have overtaken a city whose prince had just
rendered so great a service to the Persian satrap. Again, among
the intaglios found in these subterranean chambers there are some
o
which I am inclined to ascribe to the fifth rather than to the sixth
century B.C. ; they show hardly a trace of archaism ; the nude is
treated with much ease and freedom ; the female nude especially
is presented in attitudes which imply much familiarity with the
subject.1 As we have begun to guess, why should we not go on ?
May we not suppose that the treason of Stesenor excited the fury
of the Greeks in the island, and especially at Salamis, and that
when, towards the middle of the fifth century, Cimon appeared
with his victorious fleet in Cyprian waters, Curium was besieged
and sacked by its neighbours ? The collection includes one or
two intaglios of such an advanced style of execution that we might
at a pinch bring down the closing of the vaults to the time of
Evagoras. At that period, again, the island was torn by san-
guinary conflicts between the partisans of Persia and those who
stood out for national independence, and between the two Curium
may have paid dearly for the fault of a century before.
In any case it appears that a certain tradition of the buried
treasure survived, for the mosaic pavement of the temple had
been pierced at several points, and Cesnola was able to trace
excavations to a depth of from six to seven feet which, being ill
directed, came to an end against the rocky foundations. His
suspicions were, in fact, aroused by these abortive pits.2 The
floor in their neighbourhood sounded hollow, and by turning the
1 Mr. KING, in his attempt at a catalogue of the intaglios in the treasure of
Curium, thinks that the series which he endeavours to establish embraces a period
extending from the very beginnings of the glyptic art to the commencement of the
fifth century before our era (CLSNOLA, Cyprus, p. 354). He calls particular
attention to the following intaglios figured in Cesnola's work : Plate xxxix. 5, 6, 7, 8 ;
and plate xl. 12 and 13.
i.A, Cyprus, p. 30.?
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA. ?oi
obstacle which had stopped his predecessors and digging much
deeper, he arrived at the hiding-place which they had missed.
Evidently the first explorer had not belonged to the personne I of
the temple. He was not one of the priests or servants who, at
the first alarm, had carried every precious object into the crypt
and arranged them there in an order which proves that the
operation was not hastily carried out, but completed at leisure by
men who thought the necessity for concealment would soon be
over. But their hopes were vain, and it is probable that every
man about the temple perished in the massacre, carrying with him
the secret of these vaulted chambers. We dare not pretend to
regret their death, but let us at least join the archaeologist who
has described the intaglios from Curium with such loving care,1
in rendering our tribute to the memory of those faithful guardians
who took such efficient means to preserve the wealth of their god
from sacrilege.
§ 3. — 772e Temples of Gozo and Malta.
We have already had occasion to quote the Phoenician monu-
ments found at Malta (Figs. 28 and 46). That island and its
neighbouring islet of Gaulos, now Gozo, were the first points to
be occupied by the Tyrians and Sidonians when they began to
frequent the central basin of the Mediterranean. WTe do not
know whether they were the first inhabitants or not, but it is
certain that the peculiarities of the situation caused them to
colonise the islands in force. When Carthage took up the
heritage of Tyre in the western Mediterranean, Malta became
one of her naval stations, and even when the fortune of war
brought Malta and Gozo under the Roman standard, the
o
Phoenician language continued to be written and spoken in them,
as we know from the inscriptions on some of the coins and still
more from the types which most of them bear (see Fig. 218).
The Italian merchants and magistrates must have introduced
Latin, but perhaps it had not entirely superseded the Semitic
idiom even when, at the end of the ninth century of our era, the
1 KING, in Cesnola's Cyprus, p. 387.
o^-
HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
island fell for two hundred years into the hands of the Arabs.1
The latter would therefore have no difficulty in ingrafting their
own tongue upon that of the islanders, and to this day Arabic
forms the basis of the very peculiar dialect spoken by the
inhabitants of the little archipelago. Twice, therefore, in its
history Malta has been an advanced port for Oriental or African
powers, once when the Phoenicians attempted to bring all the
coasts of Italy and Sicily within their grasp, and again in the
middle ages, when it had mosques and minarets from whose
summits the muezzin proclaimed the still widening faith of
Mahomet.
The existence far into the full flush of Graico-Roman civil-
ization of temples in which everything, idols, rites, and archi-
tecture, was Semitic and Oriental, is proved by inscriptions.
One of the most curious Phoenician texts extant mentions the
FIG. 2lS. — Coin of Malta. Bronze. From Uuruy.*
construction of three or four sanctuaries by the people of Gozo.8
One was raised to the glory of Sadambaal, a second in honour
of Astarte ; chips in the marble have removed the name of a
third divinity, perhaps of a fourth. But whatever the number
may have been, the names of Sadambaal and Astarte are enough
1 In the Acts of the Apostles (xxviii. 2} the inhabitants of Malta, on to which St.
Paul was carried by the tempest, are called barbarians by the sacred writer ; we
may infer from that that Paul and his companions were surprised to find in the
peasants and fishermen by whom they were saved and warmed at a great fire people
who spoke neither Greek nor Latin. As for their Semitic dialect, it was, no doubt,
so much altered that a Jew could not understand it.
2 The inscription MEAITAK2N is Greek, but the types are both quite Oriental in
character. On one side we find Isis, with an Egyptian head-dress, and one of those
symbols which are continually met with on the votive steles of Tanit from Carthage.
On the reverse we find one of those winged deities, with the points of their wings
urned up, which also occur so often on Carthaginian steles (Fig. 187) and
Phoenician coins (GERHARD, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, plate 43).
3 Corpus Inscriptionum Semi/icarum, pars i. No. 132.
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA. 303
to show that no gods of the Greek pantheon are in question.
The text, without being very old, is apparently no later than the
end of the third Punic war. Taking a mean between the extreme
dates proposed, we may place the works it was meant to record at
about the middle of the third century before our era.
By a curious coincidence the ruins of two buildings obviously
religious in their character have been discovered on this very soil
of Gozo. Such a small island can hardly have been blessed with
many temples, so that we may fairly guess that in these remains
we see all that is left of two of the temples referred to in the in-
scription. Not that the point is of any great importance ; long
before this inscription was discovered and translated the buildings
in question were recognised as temples. The only mistake made
by the explorers who first drew attention to them was in taking
au sdrieux the name given to them by the peasants, the Giganteia,
or "giant's building."1 This name led them to credit the ruins with
a prodigious antiquity, and even to half accept them as the work
of a race of giants who inhabited the island before the arrival of
the Phoenician colonists, perhaps before the flood !
Such dreams are to be explained and excused by the want of all
points of comparison. The ancient monuments of Syria were as
yet hardly known, and explorers came to their conclusions without
knowing how fond the Phoenicians were of materials of extravagant
size, and how they inoculated all the peoples with whom they cim^
in contact with that taste. In the Giganteia, as in soms of the
ruins in Malta itself, there are stones from ten to twenty feet long,
and of proportional height and width (Fig. 2 1 g).2 Such dimensions
might well astonish the agriculturists of Gozo, who were accus-
tomed to build with mere chips of stone ; but they will seem
modest enough to those who have stood before the walls of
1 During the last eighty years these ruins have been often drawn and studied. A
list of these successive explorations is given in CARUANA (Report on the PJmnidan
and Roman Antiquities in the Group of the Islands of Malta, 8vo, Malta, 1882).
This report, which was drawn up under the orders of the English governor by the
keeper of the public library, gives a sufficiently accurate statement of the present
condition of these monuments. We gather from it that the so-called Giganteia has
suffered much during the last fifty years. Many curious parts of the structure are no
longer in existence which were there in 1834, when Albert de la Marmora made the
drawings which we reproduce. For the history of the monument and its present
state see the Report, pp. 7-9.
2 Our figs. 219 and 220 have been engraved from a photograph sent to us by M.
Dugit, Dean of the Faculte des Lettres of Grenoble.
304 HISTORY OK ART IN I'IKKMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Arvad, of the Haram-ech-Cherif, at Jerusalem, or before the famous
trilithon of Baalbek. Another mania that possessed these same
workmen was for applying to dressed stone the processes with
which they attacked the living rock. From a single stone they
would cut an entire column or even doorway, things which else-
where would be made up of various different members ; J now, we
could hardly name a more remarkable instance of this tendency
than the doorway leading into a hall in one of the temples of
Malta. It has neither jamb nor lintel. It has been cut with the
chisel through a huge slab of limestone kept in place by a pair of
tall uprights (Fig. 220).
If we examine the general arrangements of these temples at
Gozo and Malta, we find in them none of the features which dis-
tinguish the religious buildings raised by the Greeks and Romans ;
the whole spirit of their construction is Phoenician. Of this our
readers may judge from the plans, sections, and details we are
about to give of the two best preserved of these monuments : the
Giganteia of Gozo and the Hagiar Kim, or "stones of adoration,"
which are to be found at Malta, near the village of Casal Crendi.
The Giganteia comprises two temples close together, but without
any direct communication from one to the other. Their doorways
face westwards and open through a long wall which binds them
to each other, forming a facade for both (Fig. 221) ; the axes of the
two buildings are parallel and their plans are almost identical, but
their dimensions are by no means the same. The more northern
building is much the larger; we may guess that it was dedicated
to the more powerful of the two deities here worshipped.
Each temple consists of two halls communicating by a narrow
passage; their shape is an elongated ellipse. In line with the
outer door and with the passage between the two halls the
building ends in each case in a small apse, or hemicycle, the
floor of which is raised slightly above that of the chamber from
which it opens. In each of the lateral apses there is a similar dais,
giving to the whole a certain resemblance to the choir and side
chapels of a modern Roman Catholic church (Fig. 222). It is
probable that a barrier formerly separated these raised platforms
from the public part of the hall. The right apse in the first hall
was reached by a flight of semicircular steps, projecting out into
the body of the chamber.
1 See above, p. 109.
VOL. I.
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA.
307
It was here that the most unmistakable traces of the ancient
worship, a worship in which the divinity was represented by the
same emblem as at Byblos and Paphos, were found. The cone
(Fig. 223) had been overturned but its site was easy to recognize.
This was a sort of pavilion at each side of which stood a stone
upright, like those figured on the Phoenician and Cyprian coins
to which we have already alluded. Two heads, roughly carved
FH;. 220. — Door\\ ay in the temple of Hagiar Kim, at Malta.
in the local stone, were found lying upon the ground in the
larger temple not far from the cone. Their cheeks were enframed
in a long veil, and they resembled to some extent the heads on the
Egyptian Canopic vases.1
The whole building is 440 feet in circumference and eighty-eight
feet in greatest length, internal measurement. Its greatest width
is seventy-six feet eight inches, and its width across the outer hall
1 LA MARMORA, p. 13, and plate i. figs./, and/1.
3oS HISTORY OK ART IN PHCKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
fifty-three feet eight inches. There is no sign of any kind of
roof. The sacred emblem alone seems to have been protected
against the weather ; and the rest of the building was open to the
sky. In the right hand apse of the second chamber there is a
basin cut in the rock which forms the floor ; it was used, no doubt,
for ablutions. Some quadrangular blocks which stand up through
the soil in the same chamber must have been altars. In front of
the apse in the first hall the stones are covered with an elaborate
decoration of spirals and of bosses in the shape of women's breasts
Kir,. 221. — Plan of the Gigantcia at (Jozo. From La Marmora.
with a hole in the centre.1 On one block a snake or an eel-shaped
fish is chiselled.2 We shall again encounter this same barbaric
decoration at Hagiar Kim.
The second temple, situated to the south of the one just
described, is less interesting ; the floors of the apses lie at the
same level as that of the central passage. There are neither
altars nor elaborately carved stones. Either the building was
1 LA MARMORA, plate i. figs. m. and «.
'•' Ibid, plate i. fig. g.
O
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA.
intended to be less elaborate than the first or it was never finished
(Fig. 224).
The method of construction at the Gigantcia is identical with
that at Hagiar Khu ; we find the same irregularity and the same
use of huge blocks in both. One block, marked c on the plan
Fin. 223. — The cone of the Giganteia. Height about 40 inches. Fr.mi La Marmora.
(Fig. 225), and the largest in the building, is twenty-two feet six
inches long, ten feet eleven inches high, and three feet seven
inches wide. One great pier is twenty feet three inches high.1 The
plan is more complicated than that of the temples at Gozo, but the
FIG. 224. — The Giganteia, longitudinal section of the second temple through the line n M.
From La Marmora.
same fondness for ellipsoids is to be traced in the shapes both of
the building as a whole and of the separate chambers. There!
1 We borrow these particulars from the first description ever given of these ruins :
it was published after the excavation of 1840 under the title: Description of an
Ancient Temple near Crendi, Ma I fa, in a Letter from J. G. Vance to M. Carlisle, in
the Archceologia, vol. xxix. pp. 227-240. This description is accompanied by six
wretched plates. Not long afterwards attention was called to the same ruins by
M. CH. LEXORMAXT, who spoke of them in a letter addressed to M. Cesar Daly
at the beginning of one of his voyages to the East (Monuments phenieiens de. Malic.
in the Revue gencrale de P Architecture et des Trareaux publics, 1841, p. 497 and
plate 21). Our plan and the details of Hagiar Kim which we here reproduce are
taken from the plates in M. Caruana's Report and from the photographs given
with it.
^u HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
seem to have been two entrances, and seven apses may still be
traced ; symmetry suggests an eighth which we have ventured to
indicate by dotted lines. In the two principal chambers (A and n)
the semicircular parts seem to have been divided from the rest.
Our plan shows a line of masonry, a single course, which may
either have been used to retain an elevated dais or to support a
screen ; in any case, it forms a line of demarcation between what
we should call the nave and the choir. If these two saloons had
V $>
TO^-ssc
f ••
Fi<;. 225.— Plan of the temple of linear Kim, Malta. From Carunnn.
no companions the plan would not sensibly differ from that of the
Gigantcia; the only difference would lie in the omission of the
corridor, which, in the Gozo temples, leads from one room to the
other. We may be allowed to guess that the four chambers to
the left of A and i; are later additions. They may have afforded
accommodation for the worship of secondary deities, and to their
construction may be due the disappearance of the second apse of
hall B. Two of these new chambers (E and D) have recesses in
their side walls, which appear to have been what we should call
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA.
chapels ; they were each covered with a single flat stone, the only
trace of a roof to be found in the whole building.
The chief sanctuary seems to have been in the first of the two
great halls. An effort at decoration seems here to have been
made, and several curious fragments have been found among
the debris. The whole of the walls are covered with an ornament
made up of a multitude of small holes, in which some people have
chosen to see an imitation of the star-sprinkled vault of heaven
(Fig. 226). : Such an explanation is, perhaps, more ingenious than
well founded ; is it not more simple to suppose that the general
effect was agreeable to those early architects ? A similar decoration
FIG. 226. — Interior of the temple of Hagiar Kiin. From Caraana.
has been observed in certain parts of the temple at Gozo.2 These
myriads of stabs are no more, in our opinion, than a decoration
suggested by the same ideas and carried out on the same principle
as the carefully chiselled joints of which, as we have already seen,
other workmen of the same race were so fond.
This same decoration occurs on two fragments picked up in the
principal hall at Hagiar Kim (A), and now preserved in the public
library of Malta. One of the two is a slab with a decoration
resembling that of one of the stones of the Giganteia. Below a
1 CARUAXA, Report, pp. 10, u.
- LA MARMORA, plate i. fig. h.
VOL. I.
S S
314 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKPF.NDEXCIKS.
slightly salient band or fillet hangs a conical or egg-shaped
excrescence llankecl on either side by a pendant spiral like the
hook of a pastoral staff (Fig. 227). In this, too, a symbol has
been discovered, and some have pretended to see in it a figurative
representation of the world springing from an egg.1 If that were
his meaning we can hardly congratulate the stone-cutter on the
clarity with which he has expressed his thoughts. Why was he
satisfied with half an egg, and why did he hide that half between
those two eye-filling volutes ? To us it seems to be nothing more
than an ornamental motive ; a roiifrhlv-su"£ested G(rcr between
o ^ oo oo
two of those huge spirals which play such a conspicuous part in
all primitive systems of decoration ; we shall meet it in force in the
art of Mycenae
FIG. 227. — Decorated stone, from Hagiar Kim. From Caruana.
The second monument found in this hall is an altar of very
singular shape (Fig. 228). The most curious thing about it is
the vertical concavity which takes up so much of its anterior face.
In this hollow a not unskilful chisel has carved a sort of shrub with
leaves symmetrically arranged, which seems to spring from a box.
The Maltese decorator, probably a village mason, has copied some
familiar plant, just as the ceramists of Thera, lalysos and Mycense
were wont to do ; and yet the mystic speculations of a Philo and a
Damascius have been ransacked to discover some profound mean-
ing in his work, and to turn his humble but effective ornament
into a sacred tree.
In the same enclosure, and not far from the altar we have
described, several more of much simpler form were discovered.
Of one we catch a glimpse in Fig. 226 ; it is mushroom-shaped,
1 CARUANA Report, pp. 10, u.
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA.
and deserves to figure on a larger scale (Fig. 229) on account
of its resemblance to a type of altar often met with in Syria
(Fig. 191).
Here as at Gozo the fragments of a cone have been found ; its
base instead of being elliptic, as at the Giganteia,is circular.1 In this
same room (A) seven small figures carved in the local limestone were
picked up ; they are now in the Library of Valetta. In the absence
of anything that may be called an attribute it is difficult to decide
whether these are votive statuettes or idols, or, as the Maltese
scholars think, the seven Cabeiri.2 Their heads have dis-
appeared ; they were probably metal additions for there are no
FIG. 228. — Altar. Hagiar Kim, Height 2%\ inches. Diameter of its table 14^ inches.
From Caruana.
marks of breakage. At the neck there is simply a hollow, and,
in two of the figures, a pair of small sockets. The workmanship
is so rough that it is difficult to determine the sex. Most of the
statuettes are nude (Fig. 230), but two seem to be dressed in long
robes (Fig. 231) ; some are seated, others crouched on their heels.
At the back of one a long tress of hair falls to the feet. At first sight
the fullness of the chest seems to hint at the feminine gender, but
there is no certain indication. All the figures are fat to deformity.
The sculptor, if we may give him such a title, has wished thus to
suggest that his gods or his men, as the case may be, were beings
•
1 LA MARMORA, plate ii. figs. 9, 10.
2 CARUAXA. Report, p. 30.
HISTORY OF ART IN PIKV.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
of great power. The execution is incredibly rough. The hands
and feet are not modelled at all. The limbs end in shapeless
stumps.
FIG. 229. — Altar. Hagiar Kim. Malta. Height 38 inches. From Caruana.
Hagiar Kim is not the only temple whose ruins still exist in
Malta; the remains of a building, not unlike the Giganteia in its
arrangements, are to be encountered not much more than half a.
mile off, at a place called Mnaidra.1 It includes two pairs of oval
FIG. 230. — Statuette. Height 7 inches. From Caruana.
chambers, in which stand more than one of those mushroom-shaped
altars which have been found at Hagiar Kim, Some remains of a
still larger building exist at Bordj-en-Nadur, near the harbour of
Marsa Scirocco ; 2 it was long used as an open quarry by the knights
1 CARUAXA, Report, pp. 14-17. 2 /^ pp_ 17-19.
THE TEMPLES OF Gozo AND MALTA.
of St. John, and now hardly anything is left of it beyond the wall of
which we have already given a wood-cut (Fig. 46). This wall
surrounds an apse whose dimensions suggest larger rooms than
those of the other temples. A marble pavement and some shafts
of columns have been rescued at different times from the dddns.
The two marble cippi with inscriptions to Melkart came from
these ruins (Fig. 28), l whence it has been reasonably concluded
that the temple was dedicated to that god, and was, perhaps, the
chief religious building in the island. Finally, there are some
more ruins of the same character on the slope of the Corradino
hill, close to the great harbour. In 1840 excavations, too soon
abandoned, laid bare the entrance and two apses.2
FIG. 231. — Statuette. Height 8| inches. From Carnana.
Our readers may be surprised at our insistance on monuments in
which the art is so poor, but we had our reasons for treating them
at length. They are little known ; several of them are really well
preserved, at least in parts, while they furnish us with authentic if
not elegant types of that religious architecture of the Phoenicians
of which we know so little. When we compare the temples of
Gozo and Malta with those of Cyprus and Phoenicia proper we
only find one feature peculiar to the former, and that is the love
of the Maltese architect for the elongated ellipse and its conse-
quence, an apse-shaped sanctuary.3 With that exception we find
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. Nos. 122 and 122 bis.
2 CARUANA, Report, pp. 19, 20.
3 Some of the temples of the great Syrian goddess were also of this shape. A
painting at Pompeii represents a semicircular pavilion with a great cone in the centre
(Roux, Herculaneum et Pompei, 5th series, vol. iii. pp. 16-22, and plate vii.)
3i8 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
all the features encountered in the Levant, the same irregular
masonry, the same huge units, the same liking for worship in
the open air, the same altars and isolated piers, finally, the
same emblem in the place of honour, the sacred cone. The
similarities are striking and the differences are much the same
o
as those we should find between a village church and a great
cathedral. In spite of its advantageous situation Malta was too
small to become, especially in antiquity, an important centre of
population. In the fine season, when merchant fleets and ships of
war lay in the ports of the archipelago, all was life and animation ;
captains and seamen escaped from the perils of the deep, carried
their offerings to Melkart, Esmoun, and Astarte, and some of these
offerings, like the cippi on which the names of Abdosir and
Osirsamar appear, were of considerable value ; l but their number
and richness did not raise the sanctuaries of the island above their
station as provincial and even rustic temples, constructed and
decorated by a community of peasants, fishermen, and small
traders. The great want of the Maltese was not material re-
sources but refined taste ; they had plenty of excellent stone, stone
which at the present day is exported to Tunis and there largely
employed, but they were without the models and practical in-
struction in their use which the natives of Cyprus owed to their
proximity to Egypt, to Syria, and to the cities of Greece.
§ 4. — The Temples of Sicily and Carthage.
While, by a singular chance, Malta and Gozo have handed down
to us several Phoenician temples in which both the general
arrangements and not a few accessories of the cult may still be
traced, nothing remains of the far richer and more important
sanctuaries raised by the Syrians, and still more by their Car-
thaginian cousins, on the shores of Sicily. The existence of these
shrines is proved only by numerous passages in ancient authors
and by the existence of a few votive steles, the last remains of the
mass of votive offerings accumulated in them by the piety of many
generations. Nothing is left of the famous temple in which
Astarte was worshipped as Erck-Hayim, literally " long-life," that
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semilicarum, pars i. Nos. 122 and 122 bis.
THE TEMPLES OF SICILY AND CARTHAGE. 319
is to say the " goddess who gives a long life," whence the name
Eryx, given to the town by the Greeks of Sicily and used by all
the classic writers. Of this temple we know only that it was built
on the very top of the mountain, within a strong wall which
crowned its slopes and defended its summit (Fig. 34). Of the
vast collection of monuments which it must have possessed the
only thing that has survived is a stele with an inscription referring
to some building executed within its precincts by a certain Himilco,
son of Baaljatho.1
Lilybaeum, on the site of the modern Marsala, seems to have
had a temple to Ammon ; this we infer from a curious stele quite
recently discovered (Fig. 232). - It bears a short dedication signed
by a personage calling himself Hanno, son of Adonbaal. But
the chief interest of the monument lies in the bas-relief on its
upper part. In the' middle of the field stands one of those
candelabra of which we have already given examples taken from
Carthaginian steles (Figs. 82 and 83) ; to the left is the sacred
cone, here represented with head and arms as on the coins of
certain Asiatic towns ; near the cone stands a caduceus, on the
right there is a man adoring. He is dressed in a robe falling
to the feet and gathered in a band about the waist ; a pointed cap
is on his head. The whole thing is without value as a work of
art, but it gives a good idea of the Phoenician costume, a costume
which resembles that still worn in the Levant by those Greek,
Syrian, and Armenian merchants who have not yet adopted the
costume of Europe.3
Several votive inscriptions have been found in Sardinia which
allow us to infer that there were Phoenician sanctuaries on that
island also;4 they bear the names Baal Sama'im or Baal of the
skies, of Astarte-Erek-Hayim, of JEsmoun, of Baal-Ammon, of
Elat. Some steles, found mostly in the tombs of Sulcis, confirm
this conjecture. On many of them Astarte may be recognised as
a female figure in a long robe and an Egyptian head-dress. She
1 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. No. 135. The text of the inscription
has,-unfortunately, been lost for the last two hundred years, and we know it only by
two ancient copies which leave much to be desired.
2 Ibid. No. 138.
3 Conf. the worshipper on the Carthaginian stele figured above (fig. 13) and
another on a stele given below (Fig. 305).
4 Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars i. Nos. 139-141, 143, 147-149, 151.
320 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKFNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
holds the lunar disk in both hands and appears to offer it for
adoration. One of these steles must date from the very com-
mencement of the Phoenician occupation (Fig. 233) ; its base is
like a truncated pyramid or one of the towers of a pylon ; the
FIG. 232. — Stele from Lilybaeum. Corpus, plate 29.
pedestal on which the goddess stands and the pavilion under
which she is sheltered have the same form, while the whole is
crowned with a frieze of ursei. The upper gorge bears a globe
THE TEMPLES OF SICILY AND CARTHAGE.
without wings. The same arrangement is found in many other
steles, but with variations and differences in execution which prove
that all these monuments by no means belong to the same
century.1 In any case this worship and the divine type con-
secrated by it had not fallen into disuse even at the time of the
Roman conquest ; this is proved by several steles which, by their
chronological order, would come at the end of the series. The
columns which enframe the pavilion are classic, but in one stele
at least motives entirely Phoenician are mingled with the distinc-
tive features of the Ionic order (Fig. 193). The winged globe
occupies the centre of a cornice with a purely Greek profile, but
FIG. 233.— Stele from Sulcis. Height 28 inches. From Crespi.
above that cornice again appears a row of ureei. In another stele
from the same place (Fig. 194), we are inclined to see a relic of
the worship of Baal-Hammon. High in the field we see a disk
embraced by a crescent ; lower down, an animal walking to the
left. This animal certainly looks more like a sheep than a ram ;
it has no horns, but their absence may be explained by the general
roughness of the work.
Nothing has been found that we can recognize as ruins of
the buildings in which these gods were adored. The temple of
CRESPI, Catalogo, plate i. Nos. i, 8, 10, and n.
VOL. I.
T T
322 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Melkart at Gades had a great reputation in the time of Strabo,1
but now \ve do not even know its site.
In Carthaginian Africa no temples earlier than the Roman
Conquest have been found, but various signs prove that it pos-
sessed buildings whose decorations had certain features in common
o
with those in other parts of greater Phoenicia. Here, for instance,
FIG. 234. — Lintel at Ebba. Limestone. Height 55 inches.
is a lintel which is at present doing duty as a doorpost at Ebba, to
the south of Kef (Fig. 234). The sockets for the hinges may still
be traced. But the curious thing about it is that it bears, between
two lotus buds, those symbols to which we have already drawn
1 STRABO, iii. v. 3, 5, 9.
THE TEMPLES OF SICILY AND CARTHAGE.
attention as a kind of blazon proper to Phoenician art, the solar
disk — here with a crown of rays — and the crescent moon. In a
neighbouring district, at Djezza, among the ruins of a Byzantine
fort, a very curious and original capital may be seen (Fig. 235).
It is of the Ionic order but the familiar elements are arranged in
very novel fashion. The proportions are neither Greek nor
Roman. The volutes are applied to the faces of a cubical
calathos, from which they do not stand out on any side. The
hollow beneath the egg moulding may once have been filled with
a bronze astragal. The influence of classic types is here very
strong but in its broad effect this capital is like nothing so much
FIG. 235. -Capital at Djezza. Limestone. Drawn by Saladin. Height with astragal 20 inches.
Diameter of the lower part 18 inches.
as those Cypriot caps of which we have already given so many
examples (Figs. Si-53)-1
Even at Carthage itself there is no more satisfaction for our
curiosity. Taken twice by the Romans, all buildings anterior to
the victory of Scipio have utterly disappeared. Its demolition
was begun by order of the senate in 146, and, under the empire,
it was rebuilt in the style of the time upon the ancient site,
a century and a half the ruins of Carthage served as a quarry for
i We owe our thanks to M. Saladin for the drawings of these two fragments The
faces of the capital are not parallel, and the one here shown is nc
the remaining three.
324 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the neighbouring cities, and when its reconstruction was deter-
mined on, such of the ancient materials as remained were either
reworked and impressed with the taste of the day or dispersed far
and wide. Some of them might, no doubt, be recovered, if the
excavations, formerly begun by Beule, were taken up and pro-
secuted with sufficient energy. But as for the real Punic temples,
the buildings which saw Hamilcar and Hannibal within their gates,
it is not likely that even if the site were explored down to the very
rock anything but a few chips of mouldings and other unimportant
debris would be recovered.
Of all the great temples of Punic Carthage the only one whose
site appears to be fixed by ancient texts and modern discoveries
is that of Esmoun, which is called the temple of yEscula'pius in
documents of the empire.1 It was in the heart of the city, upon
the hill, Byrsa, which served as an acropolis. Unhappily its site
is now covered by the church of St. Louis and its dependencies ;
but neither in the works undertaken when that church was built
nor in the excavations of Beule was anything found which could
be said to date from the primitive building ; all the fragments dug
up belong certainly to the new Corinthian temple of white marble
built under the Roman emperors. Its style was that of the
Roman structures raised in the first century of our era. Nothing
seems to have survived of the temple in which, on the supreme
day of Carthage, nine hundred Roman deserters intrenched them-
selves with Hasdrubal, and when betrayed by him defended
themselves to the last extremity. This temple was the richest
and most beautiful in Carthage." It faced eastwards, and was
built on the edge of the plateau by the side of the great public
square near the harbours. It was reached by a staircase of sixty
steps, but if danger threatened it the staircase could easily be
destroyed, for it merely rested against the perpendicular wall
of the acropolis.
The site was admirably chosen, and we should "much like to
know how it was treated by the architect. The hill on which the
temple stood rose about 200 feet above the sea level ; it dominated
the whole city, and must have had a great effect upon those who
sailed into its shadow and allowed their eyes to mount the wide
steps with which it communicated with the streets below. Whether
1 BEULE, FouUles a Carthage, pp. 9, 10, 44, 51, 75.
2 APPIAN, viii. 130 ; MoAiora TWV aAAw cV
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHOENICIAN TEMPLE.
325
it guarded any strongly marked signs of its oriental descent down
to the day when it disappeared in the conflagration lighted by its
own defenders we cannot now say ; neither can we tell how far its
walls extended nor what the dimensions of the temple proper, the
naos, may have been. As for the other shrines in the Punic town
all that we know about them is that the temple of Baal-Hammon
was in the Forum,1 and that of Tanit upon a hill separated from
the Byrsa by one of the principal streets.2 This hill was not so
high as the Byrsa, but it offered nearly as large a platform, and
several temples of secondary importance were grouped about the
sanctuary of the goddess who was the real patroness of Carthage,
and who, as the Virgo C&lestis, or Juno, preserved that role down
to the very last days of paganism.
§ 5. — On the General Characteristics of the Phoenician Temple.
We have spared no pains to follow up the slightest traces of
every temple built by the Phoenicians on the coast of Syria itself,
and in the islands and on the shores of the Mediterranean, wherever
they had permanent colonies. In our search disappointments have
been frequent. Literary and epigraphic texts are too short
and vague to give much information. Bas-reliefs often show the
altar, the sacred emblem and the officiating priest well enough, but
they abridge the temple very sternly indeed. As for the ruins
themselves, it often happens that, as at the Maabed of Amrit, the
arrangements about which we feel most curiosity have disappeared
and left no sign. In Cyprus the ruins are in better condition,
and perhaps when they are systematically explored they may tell us
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, pp. 3 1 and 8 1 .
2 Ibid. pp. 9, 26, 27. Between this hill and the sea. and between the former and
the water tanks, all those votive steles consecrated to Tanit, face of Baal, were found.
Of these there are ninety in the British Museum and more than two thousand at
Paris ; the latter are due to the excavations of M. de Sainte-Marie. Most of them
were found at the sides of the hollow, hedge-bordered road, which runs from the sea
and passes between the Byrsa and the hill on which the temple of Tanit is supposed
to have stood. It is likely that this road follows the line of one of the principal
streets of ancient Carthage. Almost all the steles are broken ; those which are
intact are about twenty-four inches high. As a rule they are rough at their lower
extremity, which seems to prove that they were planted in the ground. Their backs
are roughly dressed.
526 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
all \ve want to know. At Malta and Gozo, where the remains are
clear enough, we are in presence of buildings of the second or
third class which cannot be taken as worthy representatives of
the national architecture.
But in spite of the scantiness of these data, the individuality of
the Phoenician, or rather of the Semitic, temple, stands out with
sufficient distinctness to allow the historian to grasp its salient
features. It is distinguished from the most familiar of our types,
that of Greece and Rome, by one capital difference ; it attaches
much less importance to the cella, the chamber in which the image
or symbol of the god is placed. It consists of a great court, or
open-air hall, in the centre of which, or at one extremity, rises a
tabernacle or pavilion with the emblem of divine power beneath
its shelter. In Greece the attention of the architect was con-
centrated on the cella, the home of the god, the dwelling-place of
his often colossal statue ; in Phoenicia the symbol was, as a rule, of
no great size. The grandiose feature of the Semitic temple was
the 7re/3i£o\77, the courtyard with its continuous portico, which in
some cases included a fine order and a rich scheme of decoration.
Even now the Semitic race is not without places of worship
in which the general arrangement is much the same as this. In
the first place, there are old mosques at Cairo, those of Amrou
and Touloun, for instance, where great quadrangles are surrounded
by single- or double-aisled colonnades, and nothing is wanting but
the idol. But if we go to Mecca we shall find the type in all its
completeness in the mosque of the Caaba (Fig. 236). Even the
triumph of the Koran has not abolished the betyle, and there,
standing in the centre of the wide inclosure, the mystic stone has
received for centuries the homage of the Arab tribes.1
The primitive form of worship of these peoples was the courban,
or sacrifice offered on a high place, which is still practised near
Mecca on the occasion of the great pilgrimage. At first their
temple was no more than a clearing of levelled earth at the top of
1 Our view of Mecca and the mosque of the Caaba is from a drawing by M.
Tomaszkiewicz after a photograph by Colonel Sadik-Bey, for which we have to thank
M. G. Schlumberger. The black stone itself is not visible ; it is a rounded mass of
basalt, framed in silver and let into one of the angles of the Caaba or Beit Allah
(house of God). The Caaba is the cubic mass, 37 feet high, which stands in the
middle of the square, and is draped in the black veil called the tob-el-Caaba (shirt of
the Caaba). See on this subject ALI BEY BEN ABBASSI, Voyage, \Q\, ii. pp. 348-351.
p '^p'-r?
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PIKEXICIAX TEMPLE. 329
a hill, where the altar of sacrifice was raised within a belt of trees.
As civilization advanced, and the religious notions of the people
became more complex, the Phoenicians borrowed from the
Egyptians the idea of a tabernacle in which to lodge their
fetish ; it was Egypt that taught them to raise their sanctuary
in the middle of the consecrated area, the Jiarain. Thus far the
Phoenician temple is founded upon that of Egypt, but it never
seems to have been a servile copy. It was not hidden, like the
buildings at Luxor and Karnak, behind a huge wall ; it had no
labyrinth- of dimly-lighted chambers lying between the sanctuary
and the outer air ; perhaps through want of skill rather than want
of inclination Phoenicia substituted wide courts for the hypostyle
halls of the Pharaohs.
In spite of its simplicity the Semitic type of religious building
had a grandeur and nobility of its own ; it was the first type to
meet the pioneers of Greek civilization ; the /Eolians and lonians
found it in Cilicia, in Syria, in Cyprus and in the other islands in
which they came into contact with the Phoenicians. They began
by borrowing from it, and even when, by their own genius, they
had created an entirely new system of religious architecture, their
buildings still preserved some traces of these early lessons. We
may thus explain a peculiarity of classic architecture which had
hardly received all the attention it deserves ; the 7rep</3o\?) is much
more important in the Greek temples of Asia than in those of
Europe. It is only in Asiatic temples like those of Magnesia and
Ephesus, of Miletus and Samos, that we meet with these vast and
richly decorated quadrangles. There was nothing of the kind at
the Parthenon, at yEgina or at Phigalia. Whether the lonians
were directly inspired by the oriental type, or whether they took
possession of temples built by their predecessors on the coast,
as they are supposed to have done at Ephesus, is of slight
importance ; l the great thing to remember is that in certain
temples belonging to this country signs of Semitic influence are to
be traced even at the height of the classic period. And the
likeness was not only in the arrangement of the building. The
1 On this question see the learned and ingenious paper by E. CURTIUS, entitled
Beitra^e zur Geschichte nnd Topographic Kleinasicns (Ephesos, Pcr^anwu, Smyrna,
Sardes] in verbindung mit den Herrn Major Regely, Baurath Adler, Dr. Hirschfeld
und Dr. Gelzer; 410, 7 plates; Dummler (extracted from the Proceedings of the
Berlin Academy).
VOL. I.
330 HISTORY or AKT IN PIUKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Ephesian Artemis was the sister of the Phoenician Astarte, she
was in fact the same nature goddess under another name.1 The
two conceptions being almost identical, is it surprising that the
rites had much in common, and that a similar community may be
traced in the buildings in which those rites were performed ?
From the artistic point of view the temples of Phoenicia seem
far inferior to those of Egypt or Greece, but if we remember how
a practical and industrious people like the Phoenicians, a people,
too, who were fond of all that wealth can give, must have crowded
their shrines with all that was rich and splendid, we shall under-
stand what an impression such temples as those of Idalion and
Golgos, of Amathus, of Paphos and Cythera, must have made on
the still half-barbarous ancestors of the Greeks. The western
visitors were transported by what they saw, and centuries after-
wards the poetry of Greece showed by the epithets it lavished on
the fair Aphrodite how profound had been the impression made
by her gorgeous sanctuaries in the East.
In his work devoted to Cyprus, Engel has made use of his rare
knowledge of ancient literature to collect every passage in a
classic author in which there is any allusion to the Cyprian form
of worship;2 Movers has done the same for Phoenicia. Collate
these texts with the figured monuments which have travelled from
Syria and Cyprus into our western museums, and you will have a
bright vision of a whole vanished world, of Byblos and Paphos
with their temples and sacred groves.
In the first place you will see the wide quadrangles with their
shady porticoes, with their pavilion of the god rising above a
moving throng of worshippers, of image and amulet merchants,
which filled them from morning to night. Here and there you
may see pressing through the crowd the sellers of those sacred
statuettes which pilgrims used to buy and take back to their
homes. Athenseus has preserved the story of a miracle accom-
plished by one of these little figures ; following Polycharmus of
Naucratis he tells us how a ship on which a native of that city
was taking one of the figures in question back to his home was
saved from destruction in a storm by the goddess it represented.3
1 See ERNEST CURTIUS, Die Gritchische Gotterlehre ran Geschichtlichem Standpunct,
Svo, 1875 (reprinted from vol. xxxvi. of the Preussiche Jahrbiicher).
- EXCEL, Kypros, 2 vols. Svo, 1841, Berlin.
3 ATHKX.KUS, XV. xviii.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHOENICIAN TEMPI. i:.
Under a burning sky the coolness of deep shadow and the
freshness of falling- water are the most delightful of luxuries ; they
are, in fact, necessities. We may therefore suppose that in these
quadrangles there were sparkling fountains with basins hollowed
in the pavement, and drooping planes thrusting their roots through
the humid soil beneath. Water was required for ablutions and
sacrifices, and for quenching the thirst of the crowd of priests and
priestesses who lived in the temple and its precincts, and of the
countless pilgrims who flocked to it at certain times by land and
sea. This water must have been brought from the sides of the
neighbouring hills. On the Syrian coast, where the snows and
springs of the Lebanon fed innumerable torrents, this was easy
enough. In Cyprus it was a more difficult matter. There water
had to be brought often from a great distance, in subterranean
conduits cut in the rock. Traces of these conduits are to be found
in all parts of the island. They are carried across valleys in
siphons. 1 To the eastern traveller who has seen Turkish or
Persian mosques with their sparkling fountains and majestic trees,
it is not difficult to call up a picture of what the great sanctuary of
Paphos must have been to one coming upon it after a long
climb up the wooded slopes of the hill on which it stood.2
The temples had festivals corresponding to the changes of the
seasons. In the more celebrated among them, in those of Paphos,
Byblos and Eryx, the thing worshipped was really the energy
shown by nature in destroying and reproducing life in the world,
in repairing by a continual process of generation the losses caused
by death. In those times men followed the never-ending, ever-
beginning drama of life with a sympathy and sensibility that we in
these days have some difficulty in understanding. In winter the
languor, the mourning of nature, affected their souls ; they wept
the death of Adonis, of the young solar god who had been taken
from a world of which he was the charm and ornament. With
the return of spring, in the first days of April, their delight in the
1 CESXOLA found traces of these aqueducts near Amathus, Curium, Citium,
Throni, and, he says, in one or two places in the north of the island (Cyprus,
pp. 187, 341).
- The precincts of the temple were probably inhabited by crowds of white pigeon?,
the favoured bird of Aphrodite. In the courtyard of the great mosque at Mecca
there are more than two thousand doves, which are looked upon as belonging to the
Cherif. Pilgrims buy grain for them, and to feed them is looked upon as an
imperative duty for all who visit the sanctuary (Au BEY, vol. ii. p. 367).
33- HISTORY OK ART IN PII<MNICIA AND ITS I)i:ri;.\i)!..\ciMs.
renewed energies of themselves and of everything about them
broke out in unrestrained transports, in dancing and singing and
abandoned orgies. They welcomed the reawakened sun and the
sympathetic heat it kindled in their own veins. In such a cull
those religious prostitutions which formed one of the chief char-
acteristics of Syrian worship had their natural place. The
hicroduli of Paphos were no less famous than those of Corinth,
while the latter were influenced by Syrian ideas and religious
traditions.
In the sacred inclosure and its dependencies everything spoke
to the senses ; the air was full of perfume, of soft and caressing
sounds, the murmur of falling water, the song of the nightingale,
and the voluptuous cooing of the dove mingled with the rippling
notes of the ilute, the instrument which sounded the call to
pleasure, or led the bride and bridegroom to the wedding feast.
Under tents or light shelters built of branches skilfully interlaced,
dwelt the slaves of the goddess, those who were called by Pindarus
in the scoliast composed for Theoxenius of Corinth, the servants of
the persuasion. These are Greek or Syrian girls, covered with
jewels and dressed in rich stuffs with bright-coloured fringes.
Their black and glossy tresses were twisted up in mitras, or
scarves of brilliant colour, while natural flowers such as pinks, roses,
and pomegranate blossoms hung over their foreheads. Their eyes
glittered under the arch of wide eyebrows made still wider by art ;
the freshness of their lips and cheeks was heightened by carmine ;
necklaces of gold, amber and glass, hung between their swelling
breasts ; with the pigeon, the emblem of fertility, in one hand, and
a flower or myrtle-branch in the other, these women sat and
waited.
CHAPTER V.
CIVIL ARC 11 I T E C T U R E .
§ i.— Fortified Walls.
TUE Phoenicians had little imagination. No doubt the terrors of
death were present to their minds ; they attacked the problem of
human destiny and solved it in their own way ; their religion— a
religion entirely made up of rites and ceremonies — counted for
something in their lives, and they sought to propitiate their gods
by such sacrifices as the immolation of their first-born children.
The pious Phoenician held it a matter of honour that his account
with Heaven should leave a balance in his favour, but he did
not torment himself with mystic dreams. Neither at Tyre nor
Carthage did they lose much time in speculating upon the origin
or the end of things ; their imaginations were busied less over
questions of the future than over those of the present ; the energy
of the Phoenician genius was directed rather to utilitarian ends than
to the search for what was grandiose or beautiful. That being the
humour of the people as a whole, the energy of their constructors
must have been devoted mainly to works having for their object
the provision of spacious ports, of ample quays and strong
defensive works for the cities in which their industries were
carried on, and, finally, to the provision of convenient dwellings.
Engineers, as we should call them, had more to do in Phoenicia
than architects, and yet neither in Syria nor in Phoenician Africa
do we find anything but feeble traces of engineering works, either
civil or military.
The various sources to which we can turn for information as to
the tombs of the Phoenicians and their temples do not help us
when we come to inquire into their methods of securing their
^4 HISTORY m ART IN PIKI.NH IA AND ITS DKPKNDKNCIKS.
cities against an enemy and their dwellings against discomfort.
The structures raised to these ends were exposed to the same
danger of ruin as temples, while in spite of the services they
rendered, they had far less importance in the eyes of contemporary
writers and artists. Classic authors only make passing allusion to
them, and it is rare that remains of any importance supplement the
silence or insufficiency of the texts.
All Phoenician cities were fortified. Although the Phoenicians
o
were masters of the sea for so many centuries, we have seen that
the Philistines contrived to capture Sidon by a bold coup-de-main >
and the lesson of the disaster was taken to heart. It proved that
even the maritime quays and harbours required fortifications,
which were still more necessary to the cities on land. Egyptians,
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians and Greeks, must all in turn
have been tempted by the riches accumulated "in these seaboard
towns — towns which were not all so favourably placed as Tyre and
Arvad. Those on the mainland were vastly more exposed to
hostile attempts, but even Tyre, as the success of Alexander
proved, was not quite beyond the reach of an enemy. The cities
of Phoenicia were, then, embraced by huge wralls of defence, at
whose construction we are enabled to guess by the remains still to
be seen at Arvad and Sidon (Figs. / and 41).
The enceinte of Tyre was especially strong. This we know
from the stubborn resistance which it offered for seven months to
the attacks of Alexander, delivered with all the dash of an ever-
victorious army.1 Practically there is nothing left of the ramparts
which so long defied the great conqueror. " I do not think," says
M. Renan, " that any city having played for centuries a prominent
rblc in the world has left feebler traces than Tyre." Ezekiel was
a true prophet when he said to Tyre : " Though thou be sought
for, yet shalt thou never be found again." ! A traveller who
sjiould sail along the Syrian coast between Kasmie and Ras-el-Ain
without knowing exactly where he was, would never guess that
he was abreast of the site of an ancient city.'' The only frag-
ment of Phoenician building which M. Renan thought he could
recognize at Sour was a wall, now below the sea-level, which had
1 DIODCRUS, xvii. 46 ; PLUTARCH, Alexander, 24.
2 EZEKIEL, xxvi. 21.
3 REN AX, Mission, p. 529.
FORTIFIKD WALLS. 33^
served to uphold a quay built out into the water. The southern
ramparts must have stood on the quay in question ; it is formed
of huge blocks of stone filled in with a concrete or beton full of
broken bricks and potsherds.1
We must then form our idea of this enceinte from the evidence
of ancient writers. According to Arrian it was i 50 feet high on
the land side ; its thickness was in proportion to its height, and
the huge blocks were held together by mortar.2 This last detail
seems doubtful ; the few Phoenician walls of which fragments
remain are built of dry stones ; but the submarine wall described
by M. Renan has all the characteristics attributed by the historian
to the walls of Tyre ; it is possible that when the Tyrians found
what good results they could obtain by such a process, they made
use of it in their enceinte, which must often have been repaired and
under-pinned.
The wall was flanked with towers, and the king's palace was
backed against it. The roofs of the latter communicated directly
with the covered wav that ran the whole length of the curtain ;
j o
this we gather from Arrian's account of the assault which put an
end to Tyrian independence.'' We have already met with the
same arrangement in Assyria, at Khorsabad.4
The ramparts of Sidon and Arvad, of which some imposing
fragments still remain, have left no traces in history ; they had not
the luck to hold the victor of Issus and Arbela in check for a
\vhole winter. It is, again, in accounts of the siege of Tyre that
we read of Phoenician skill in the contrivance and management
of military engines. The engineers of Alexander, who had won
their reputation in the campaigns of Phillip, met their match in
those of Tyre.5 On both sides the greatest fertility of invention
and energy in execution had already been displayed when Alex-
ander committed himself to the stupendous task of building his
famous mole.6 In this respect the siege of Tyre was a preface
1 Mission, pp. 535, 560, 561. See also the plan given at page 531.
2 ARRIAN, Anabasis, II. xxi. 3. 'Hr 8e avVots TO. rei^r) Kara TO ^w/x.a, TO re VI//GS a's
/cat e/carov /^.aAicrra TroSas KGU e's TrAaro? ^vfJLfJLfTpOV, Allots //eyuAots eV yvil/ia
3 ARRIAN, Anabasis, II. xxiii. 6.
4 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, vol. ii. p. n, and plate i.
5 Upon the Macedonian engineers of the school of Polyidus, see J. G. DROYSEN,
Geschichte des Hellenismus (two vols. Hamburgh, 1836-1843), vol. i. p. 291, note i.
0 DIODORUS, xvii. xli. 3 : xliii. i.
^6 IIlxTORY OF ART IN PlIcKNICIA AND ITS ni'
to that great siege of Rhodes in \vhich Demetrius Poliorcetes
won his surname.
In order to find a stronghold whose ramparts were not recon-
structed by the Franks established in Syria at the time of the
Crusades, we must quit those parts of the country in which life
has always been most active and, as a consequence, most fatal to
the relics of the past ; \ve must travel northwards, into the district
of the Arvadites. It was a little outside the path of invasion ;
the neighbourhoods of the ancient sites were free from modern
cities, like Beyrout and Saida, Sour and Acre, and, as we have
seen from the tombs, the antique remains are there in better
condition than in the districts south and west of the Lebanon.
Towards the northern boundary of the region which formerly
depended upon Arvad, there is, near a small village called Banias,
a city rampart still standing for almost its whole length.1
Situated out of the beaten track, it had never drawn attention
until quite lately ; we borrow a map of the site, as well as a partial
view of the wall, from M. Camillc Favrc the first traveller to
notice it.'2
Banias is about twenty-five miles north of Arvad, it is the
ancient Balanca, the Valauia of the Crusades. The ruins of the
Grrcco-Roman city are not of much importance ; little is to be
seen but a few substructures, which, being in the neighbourhood
of abundant springs, represent most likely the baths from which
the village took its name.5
A short distance westward of these springs and higher up the
river, about a mile and a half from the sea, there stands a rampart
which still rises many feet above the plain for the whole of its
length (Fig. 237). The space it embraces is, roughly speaking,
an elongated triangle, one of its long sides being formed by the
wall in question, and the other two by a ravine whose northern
face is an inaccessible precipice ; it will be seen therefore, that the
site was well chosen for defence. Not counting its bastions the
wall is about 670 yards in total length. At its two extremities it
ends close to the precipice in a sort of returning angle, which is
particularly well marked on the eastern face. The rampart is
1 STRAI-.O places TJnlaneum on what he calls "the coast subject to the Arvadites."
2 C. FAVRE, fianias {Balance) ft son enceinte cyclopeenne (Reruc archeologique, 2nd
series, vol. xxxvii. pp. 223-232, and plate viii.).
3 Tiu/Vu'etoj' means public />a//i, bathing establishment.
FORTIFIED WALLS.
t -> 7
OvV
pierced at three points by openings varying from 25 to 35 feet
wide. There is no trace either of lintels or door-posts. The
passage must have been barred by wooden gates set in timber
frames. To the left of the north-western gate the salience of the
wall with its triple face almost deserves to be called a tower.
Elsewhere the trace is more simple ; the constructor has been
satisfied with mere redans, but his determination to bring an
attacking enemy under the full fire — if we may use the word — of the
CYCLOPEAN RAMPAltT
KEAR BANiAS.
FIG. 237. — Plan of the rampart near Bania?.
garrison is always evident. Moreover there is, between the gates,
a series of salient and re-entering angles, and they flank each
other ; but they seem to have been dictated by the configuration
of the soil. Except about the north-western gate the ground is
everywhere higher within the rampart than it is outside, so that
the fortification is riot commanded from any point in its near
vicinity. The high ground within was cut into terraces and
VOL. i. xx
338 HISTORY OF ART IN PIUKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
retained by scarps ; one of these is shown in our woodcut, which
represents the part of the wall abutting on the north-western
gate.
The present height of the wall itself, varies between 16 and 35
feet ; it is built of roughly squared blocks of grey limestone ; of
these the largest are about 40 inches long and 30 high. They are
fixed without cement, but the wider joints are filled up with small
stones. There is not the slightest sign of mortar. The most
remarkable thing about this rampart as a piece of masonry, is the
pains taken by the builder to preserve his horizontal courses
in spite of the roughness of his units. In other respects the
setting of the stones is not good ; the vertical joints often
FIG. 238. — The Phoenician wall near Banias.
coincide. The thickness of the wall varies between i6and 27 feet,
so that it would afford standing room for a strong force of
defenders, in case of an attempt at an escalade. Even where the
wall seems to have lost none of its original heights there is no
sign of a parapet of any kind. It must have been built at a time
when military engineering was still in its infancy. The only siege
machine whose antiquity might equal that of this rampart, is the
battering ram, which, as we have seen, appeared in Assyria as
early as the eighth century,1 and against its blows a wall would
have to trust only to its mass. The main attack would be directed
against the gates, in the hope of forcing them from their hinges.
1 See Art in Chaldaa and Assyria, Vol. I. Fig. 26.
FORTIFIED WALLS. 339
We have already hinted as to how this danger was provided for ;
thus, at the north-eastern gate the besiegers would find them-
selves squeezed into a narrow passage between the precipice and
the bastion-shaped end of the wall ; while before they could get
within striking distance of the gates giving upon the plateau, they
would have to advance between salient angles of the wall for
some thirty or forty yards.
The traveller who has here been our guide considers this
rampart to be the work of Pelasgians. But who were the
Pelasoqans ? That term has no real meaning for the historian
o o
unless it signifies the fathers of the Hellens and Italiots, the oldest
and first established in Europe of those tribes whose descendants
were to speak Greek and Latin. Now can any text be named
from which we may infer that one of these Aryan tribes ever dwelt
upon the Syrian coast, and dwelt there in such a permanent fashion
that they built fortified cities ? There is nothing to show that the
Pelasgians even made a flying visit to these shores. On the other
hand nothing could be more natural than the existence of a
Phoenician stronghold at this point ; it may well have been the
northern covering fortress for that Arvadite kingdom whose
borders stretched eastward to the Orontes and southward to
Orthosia. Banias is only ten leagues from Antarados, and un-
mistakable traces of Phoenician worship have been found still
farther, on Mount Casius, for instance, which rises close to the
mouth of the Orontes.
Moreover there is nothing foreign to the habits of the Phoenician
builder in the character of the wall itself. The stones are not
so large as at Arvad, but as a whole the physiognomy of the work
is quite similar ; we find in both the same horizontally of the
courses and the same coincidence of the vertical joints.
Neither at Kition nor at any other Cypriot town of Phoenician
origin has any well-preserved rampart yet been found which can
be ascribed to Syrian builders.1 But if we cross the sea and seek
them in one of those islands in which first the Syrians and
afterwards their heirs, the Carthaginians, established themselves
so strongly, we shall be more successful. Mount Eryx, at the
western extremity of Sicily, played for three centuries a capital
1 Cesnola tells us that at Golgos he found the remains of the ancient wall, but he
neither reproduces the fragments nor gives us any details as to their workmanship
(Cyprus, p. 109).
340 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKI.NICIA AND ITS DKPENDENCIKS.
role in the struggle waged by Carthage first against the Greek
cities and secondly against the armies of Rome. Close to the
excellent harbour of Drepanum, Eryx rises to a height of about
2,350 feet above a rich and fertile plain. On its summit stood
a temple of Astarte, the platform being artificially enlarged by
embanking ; this was a work of some difficulty and was ascribed
by the Greeks to Daedalus.1 Below the temple, on the side next
the sea, the houses of the town rose in stages one above another.
The Carthaginians were not content with fortifying the temple
and the city , they drew a line of circumvallation round the whole
base of the mountain. Their ramparts thus inclosed a space wide
enough to shelter a large army, which was put beyond fear of
thirst by numerous springs. Neither these works nor the remains
of the zigzag road which led up from the sea-shore to the top of
the mountain have yet been thoroughly explored, but a learned
farta.
t/tnda
FK;. 239.— Tlan of the Pha-nician wall at Fryx. From Salinas.
archaeologist, Signor Salinas, has recently made a study of that
section of -the wall which lies to the north-west of Monte San-
Giuliano.2 The wall by which this little modern town is embraced
coincides in that direction with the ramparts of Carthaginian Eryx.
The upper sections have been reconstructed again and again, but
all the lower courses of the ancient wall are still in place and bear
the mark of the Phoenician masons ; ;>> even the modern gateways
stand upon the antique sites.
On this north-western side the wall of Eryx is still standing for
a distance of about 1,100 yards (Fig. 239). The irregularity
of its trace is to be explained by the necessity under which its
1 DIODORUS, iv. Ixviii. 4; Pom;n:s, i. lv. 6, 9; Iviii. 2 ; VIRGIN, sEneid, v. 759;
STRABO, vi. ii. 6.
- A. SALINAS, Le Mura fenicie di Erice (Roma, 1883, in 4(0, 8 pages and 3 plates).
3 See above, Figs. 34 and 35.
FORTIFIED WALLS.
34
designer found himself of following the contours of the hill-side.
The wall is about eight feet thick ; .it is broken at unequal
distances by rectangular towers standing out very boldly from
the curtain (see Figs. 34 and 240). The chief care of the
architect seems to have been given to these towers, which are
built of much larger units than the curtain ; it is only in the
towers that we find stones six feet long.1 The outer faces of these
large blocks are quite in the rough, but elsewhere the stones are
FIG. 240. — One of the towers of Kryx. From Cavallari.
better worked and more carefully squared. Salinas has noted
these differences, but his attention is chiefly taken up with a
curious feature to be found both in that part of the structure where
large units are employed and in the part where the stones are
small. The courses vary in height ; but once the height of a
course is determined by the corner stone, the Phoenician builders
1 The only block of which M. Salinas gives the exact size is 5 feet 8 inches long
by 4 feet high.
34- HISTORV OK ART IN PH<I:NI< IA A.\I> ITS DEPENDENCIES.
have exercised great ingenuity in preserving its level. The
mason often had to make use of stones of a different height from
those placed at the end of the course ; in that case he made up for
the difference by introducing small stones, so that each course was
built up as it were like a wall in itself. Such masonry no doubt
leaves much to be desired. It cannot be compared to a Greek
wall of the fine period, where every unit was carefully prepared for
the exact place it had to occupy. To form a right appreciation of
this way of building, the walls of Eryx must not be compared to
those of Messene but to those of Tiryns or to any other Greek or
Italian wall on the face of which the joints describe a network of
irregular polygons. There is, in fact, real progress in the tendency
to horizontal courses which we find at Balanea as at Arvad, at
Sidon as at Eryx ; it is the mark of an advancing industry, of
a taste just beginning to feel the sentiment of order and the subtle
charm of symmetry.
The chief gateways through this wall have been so much altered
that we can only guess how they may have been arranged in
antiquity, but the posterns at the foot of some of the towers are
better preserved (B, c, E, F on the plan). They are of two
different types. Some have a rectangular opening bridged over by
a heavy stone lintel (Fig. 241). In others the opening is arched,
the arch being obtained by a device of which we found many ex-
amples in Egypt.1 Our two views of this postern show that the
arrangement of the masonry is not the same on both faces. On
the outside the semi-circle of the arch is cut through two stones
large enough to leave plenty of material above the void and thus
to guarantee solidity (Fig. 242). On the internal face there are
four stones corbelled out one beyond the other, the two uppermost
so thin that we are astonished to find them unbroken beneath the
weight that rests upon them (Fig. 242).
The rampart of Eryx cannot be so old as the walls of Banias,
Arvad, and Sidon. The Sicilian constructor seems to have
progressed in his art. His joints are better placed. Instead of
being one over the other they are, as a rule, over the middle, or
something like 'it, of the stone below. Again we find small stones
used in the curtain beside the masonry of much larger units of
which the towers are composed. These are indications of a later
age and are confirmed by the history of Phoenician colonization. As
1 Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. I., Figs. 74-76; Vol. II., Figs. 51-53.
FORTIFIED WALLS.
343
we have seen, the Tyrian settlements in the west were little more
than factories, whose safety depended rather upon their friendly
relations with the native tribes than upon military strength, so that
the walls of Eryx must date from the time when Carthage took
up the work of Tyre.1 It was not till then that the necessities
of a new political situation compelled the great African city to
construct this vast intrenched camp, a camp excellently contrived
FIG. 241. — Postern in the wall of Eryx. From S.ilinns.
either for preparing an advance in force or for covering a retreat.
The walls of Eryx can hardly have been commenced earlier than
1 At the meeting of the Berlin Archaeological Society on November 6th, 1883,
Herr Sachau, in speaking of the paper of Salinas, drew attention to the fact that the
mason's marks found so far on the walls of Eryx were not enough to give a date to
that structure. The ain certainly was shaped as in the oldest Phoenician writings,
but before any certain conclusion could be arrived at from the study of these
characters we must wait, said Herr Sachau, until other letters such as mini and shin,
whose forms were greatly modified by time, have been found (Philologische Wochen-
schrift, ist December, 1883, p. i).
;,4 }• lliM'nkv 1-1 AKI IN I'IM:MCIA AND 1 1> 1 )I.IT.M>F.N( IKS.
the first years of the fifth century, aiul it is likely that between that
date and the first Punic \var they were often enlarged and repaired.
In 260 Hamilcar destroyed the town and transferred its inhabit-
ants to Drepanum, but he certainly did not raze the fortifications,
and in after years the dispersed population came back and
re-established themselves round the sanctuary. Upon a Roman
penny of the Considia family we find both temple and rampart
figured (Fig. 244). The former stands upon some rocks which
are meant to represent the summit of the mountain ; in front
there is a wall ending in quadrangular towers, and having in the
Fir,. 242. — Postern in the wall c.f Eryx. From Salinas. Outside view.
centre an arched doorway Hanked by round towers. This coin is
contemporary with Cicero.
Solunte, built on a high hill close to the sea, and Motya, seem
both to have had a wall built after the same fashion as that of
Firyx. The rampart at Motya is the more regular and the better
preserved of the two (Fig. 245). This town was built on the
western coast, on a small island separated from the mainland by
a channel about eight or nine hundred yards wide. This choice
of a site appears to suggest a very old Phoenician colony. The
FORTIFIED WALLS.
345
modern name of the place is San Pantaleone. The stones are of
great size and are set in regular courses, without cement. There
are, or at least there were at the end of the last century, two very
well preserved towers on the western side. The base of the
enceinte was washed by the sea, and the place, as a whole, must
have been very strong.1
We may be told that in Sicily the Phoenicians had Greek walls
to copy from, and that they may even have employed Greek work-
men, either seduced by bribes or chosen from among the prisoners of
war and compelled to use their skill for the benefit of their masters.
FIG. 243. — Postern in the wall of Eryx. From Salinas. Inside view.
But this idea is discredited by the fact that in a country never
reached by Grecian navigators, in that Mauritania Tingitana,
as the Romans called it, which we know as Morocco, we find
masonry carried out upon the same system as in these Sicilian
1 Speaking of Solunte, SERRA DI FALCO mentions a wall "di grossi macigni squad-
rati" ; but he gives no drawing of it (Le Antichita della Sicilia, vol. v. p. 60); he is
content with giving a view of the site, in which the ruins themselves are hardly
visible. The fortifications of Motya are represented in HOUEL, Voyage pittoresque
des lies de Sidle, de Malte, et de Lipari (4 vols. folio, Paris, 1782-1785, vol. i. p. 17,
plate ix.).
VOL. I. Y V
HISTORY
ART i\ PIKKXICIA AND ITS DKI-KNOKNCIKS
walls. Of this the best instance is afforded by the curious ruins
of Lix, the Lixus of Greek and Latin geographers. Lix was a
Phoenician colony, as we know from a text of Scylax and from
certain medals on which its name appears in Phoenician characters.
Near the Phoenician settlement, but separated from it by the
river, the indigenous tribes built a town which lived upon its
relations with the stranger merchants.1 The latter were strongly
fortified on a lofty hill commanding the mouth of the Lixus, now
the Oued-Loukos. The position \vas admirably chosen ; the
I'Hi. 244. — 'Ihc temple and ramparts of Eryx. From a coin.-
Phcenician ships could at all times find a secure refuge in the
river's mouth, while the windings of the stream covered the
town and made it difficult of access on the land side (Fig. 246).
Lixus was divided into two distinct parts ; the Acropolis, standing
upon the lofty plateau which forms the northern half of the hill,
and the town proper, whose remains are to be traced on the slopes
facing south and north-east. Besides this it seems that there
\vas a suburb of considerable size on the river bank to the north
of the town.
The greater part of the site is now covered with a dense growth
1 .... KCU TToA.1,5 (ftOlVlKOlV AlfoS, KOL €Te'/)O. TToAlS \L/3ru>V tOTt TT(.f>n.V TOT 7TOTtt//.or.
'2 Enlarged from DONALDSON. Anhitectura niiininnatica, No. 32.
FORTIFIED WALLS
347
of myrtles, carob-trees, mastics and wild olives, which a perfect
network of bramble and bindweed renders quite impenetrable at
many points. M. Tissot, from whom we have taken the figures
and other details we are about to give on the subject of Lixus,
succeeded, however, in traversing the whole area in two different
.directions and in following the complete trace of the walls.1
The enceinte of the lower city was entirely built of small stones ;
it is identical in character with many other structures in the same
region, and they date from the Roman period, as we know by the
fragments of Latin epigraphy and sculpture imbedded in them.
In the whole of this country the only strangers who preceded
the Roman colonists and brought the germs of civilization to its
FIG. 245. — The uall of Motya. From Ilouel.
natives were the Phoenicians. To the Phoenicians, therefore,
without a moment's hesitation, were the remains of a very different
wall at the same place attributed. The difference between this
and the rampart of the lower town is made all the more conspicu-
ous by the way the latter has been repaired. Wherever a breach
1 These ruins had already been pointed out under their right name by EARTH
( Wanderungen durch die Kiistenlander des Mittelmeers, pp. 21, 22); but we owe our
only circumstantial description of them, with maps and views, to M. CHARLES
TISSOT, formerly Minister Plenipotentiary of France in Morocco (Recherches sur la
geographic compares de la Mavritanie Tingitane, pp. 203-221 ; and Memoires pr'esentes
a r Academic des Inscriptions par divers savants etrangers, vol. ix. p. 139). The map
we reproduce was perforce omitted from the Academy memoir.
34$ HISTORY OK ART IN PIKI.NICIA AND ITS DEPKNDENCIKS.
occurs it is filled in with small stones, \vhile the original work is
entirely carried out in large blocks, like those we saw at Banias,
Kryx, and Motya.
The rampart of the upper town incloses a hexagon of about
2,000 yards in total circumference. It is built of huge stones
carefully dressed and set without mortar (Fig". 247). All the
blocks in a single course are of the same height but of a different
length ; the majority measure about sixty inches by forty, but
some of those at the angles are as much as twelve feet long by
nearly seven high. At some points the wall is still from fourteen
to eighteen feet high. The angles are strengthened by square
towers.
The only building of which any important remains are still
visible was, perhaps, a temple. It is built of huge stones, and the
large rough slabs with which a sort of covered way is roofed
remind us of the Panaghia Phaneromeni of Larnaca. We are led
to see a temple in this building by the discovery in its immediate
neighbourhood of a cone cut from a very hard stone which is
not to be found in the country. In this we can hardly refuse to
recognize a symbol of the same kind as that found at Gozo, in
the Giganteia (Fig. 223).
These ruins lie between the Acropolis and a small artificial
harbour, partly formed by a wall about seventy yards long. This
harbour had two entrances, and by its means the Phoenician ships
could be brought close up to the warehouses. While awaiting
their turns they could anchor in the river.
All this helps us to form a good idea of what a Phoenician
settlement amoni^ barbarous tribes was like. Life and move-
O
ment had their centre about the harbour ; a little higher up were
the sanctuaries to which the sailors came to offer their vows to
Melkart and Astarte. Finally, although they took care to be on
good terms with the natives, it was necessary that their dwellings
should be guarded from sudden attack. Wherever safety was not
insured by the nature of the site, as it was at Motya and Gades,
the factory was safe-guarded by one of those ramparts of solid
masonry against which the efforts of a band of savages could do
nothing. No doubt the Acropolis was provided with reservoirs of
fresh water and silos filled with grain.
Nothing proves the energy of the Phoenician race more clearly
than all these arrangements for enabling a few hundreds of
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FORTIFIED WALLS. ^i
»J -J
merchants and sailors to live in safety so many hundreds of miles
away from that native city which they enriched by their self-
sacrifice.
If the Punic engineers were able to carry out such considerable
works as these in Sicily, and on the distant shores of the Atlantic,
it stands to reason that they would spare no pains to fortify the
capital of the Empire. At a very early period Carthage became
alive to the necessity of being on her guard against the jealousy
of other Phoenician cities on the same coast, against the ill-will
of her Libyan subjects, and against the feelings of envy and
covetousness which her wealth and industrial success could not
fail to excite. The ancients speak with wonder of the wall of
Carthage, which must, after the suburb of Megara was included
^^w^^^m^- '-
/' X;^V*v'; W^''
FIG. 247. — The wall of Lixus. From an unpublished drawing by Charles Tissot.
in it. have been from six to seven leagues in total leno-th
o
(Fig. 248). l Every captain who ventured to attack the Cartha-
1 OROSIUS says the enceinte of Carthage was 20 miles in circumference, EUTROPJUS
says 22, LIVY 23 (Epitome of book li.). STRABO says 360 stades, or 72,810 yards
(41 miles 650 yards), a figure we can hardly accept ; there must be some mistake
either by the author or his copyist. Upon the plan of Carthage drawn up by DAUX,
in which all the remains of ancient walls are laid down with the greatest care, the
total length of the wall, according to M. Tissot, is 28,300 metres (about 31.200
yards). Daux's plan will be published by M. Tissot in the great work he has in
preparation upon Carthaginian and Roman Africa. [Since these words were written
M. Tissot has died and left his great work incomplete. The first volume, however,
is in print, and the manuscript of the rest in such a condition that its publication
may be surely expected. — ED.] On the whole, it agrees with that of Falbe, the best
,>5- IIlSTOKY (>K ART IN PlId-.NICIA AND ITS 1 H.I'KN 1 >F.NCI1.S.
ginians in Africa — Aj^ithocles, Regains, the leaders of the revolted
mercenaries — was checked at the: foot of these walls ; even at the
end of the third Punic war, when Carthage no longer had an
army, they offered a long resistance to the legions of Rome.
I'io. 248. — Map of the peninsula of Carthage.
We are told that the enceinte of Carthage was built of dressed
stone, saxo quadrato? According to Diodorus it was forty cubits,
we have so far (Rccherches snr t emplacement de Carthage, with five plates and a topo-
graphical plan ; Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1883). Our j)lan is taken from M. Duruy's
Jlistoire des Rom a his, vol. i. p. 415.
1 OROSTUS, iv. 22.
FORTIFIED WALLS. 353
or sixty-one feet, high, and twenty two cubits, or thirty-four feet,
thick.1 Appian gives about the same thickness, but he reduces
the height to thirty cubits, or about forty-six feet. He calls this
the height of the curtain beneath the battlements, and says that
the towers, which had four stories, were much higher.2 He adds
that the wall was triple at least on the side of Byrsa and the
Gulf of Tunis.3 The author of the best work on the question,
the regretted Charles Graux, shows that although these dimensions
are out of the common, there is nothing astonishing in them, and
that the figures of Appian especially are admissible enough.4
What follows, however, is not so easily explained. According
to Appian there were, at least on the west and south, three walls
exactly like each other, and separated by regular distances. In
the interior of each there were stables for 300 elephants, and,
over them, for 4,000 horses, as well as lodging for 24,000 men,
and huge magazines containing food for the elephants and forage
for the horses.
There are many things in the description of Appian that try
our credulity and make us regret the loss of the account left by
Polybius, an accurate writer, who was, morever, an eye witness of
the great siege. For a right interpretation of Appian's text we
cannot do better than turn to the incisive study of Charles Graux,
who has no difficulty in showing that the historian in question
was nothing more than a compiler, of mediocre skill, and that,
being quite ignorant of military matters, he formed an idea of the
Carthaginian fortifications which does not bear analysis. Graux
gives a very clear explanation of the triple wall. To this end he
makes use of the rules laid down by Philo the engineer in his
Manual of Fortification; of the Attack and Defence of Places,
a work compiled, in the opinion of some scholars, in the third,
according to others, in the second, century of our era.0 He
1 DIODORUS, xxxii. xiv.
2 APPIAN, viii. 95. TWrcov (of the walls) 8' f.Ka<rrov rjv vi/'os /xev TTTJ^WV A, x0^/-"5
3 There are some words missing from the text of his description ; they may be
restored with considerable certainty.
4 CHARLES GRAUX, Note sur les fortifications de Carthage, pp. 192, 193, in the
Melanges publics par lecole des Hautes Etudes pour le dixieme anniversaire de sa
fondation (8vo, Paris, 1878, pp. 175-208). For all questions of topography reference
must be had to the dissertation of DUREAU DE LA MALLE, entitled Recherches sur
la topographie de Carthage, with notes by M. DUGASTE: i vol. Svo, 1835.
5 This curious work is the only treatise on fortification left us by antiquity ; the
z 7.
354 HISTORY OF ART IN PII<I:XICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
compares the results so obtained with the inductions we may
draw from the different episodes of the s'egc, and with the
descriptions given by Daux of the ramparts of Thapsus and
Adrumetum ; these towns were closely related to Carthage, and
they must have possessed lines of circumvallation differing from
those of the parent city only in extent ; they were built by the
same architects and on the same plan. On this point the
evidence of Daux is so exact and precise as to leave no room
for doubt.1
Appian must have been mistaken when he says there were
three similar lines of circumvallation. On no ancient site have
any traces of such an arrangement been found, and the reason
of their absence is not far to seek. The first circle once captured
would afford a splendid vantage-ground from which to attack the
second, and so on to the third. The great object in ancient sieges
was to raise the batteries of the besiegers to at least the same
o
level as the battlements of the wall attacked, and this result would
follow at once from the capture of the first enceinte ; after that the
reduction of the second and third would be simple enough. So
that a triple wall such as that described by Appian would add very
little to the strength of a place.
The real meaning of the author, Polybius perhaps, upon whom
Appian based himself, was very different. As we know from Philo,
the custom in fortifying a city according to the full rules of the art
was to dig three concentric ditches, each as wide and deep as
circumstances would allow, and behind the first of these, that is,
behind the ditch nearest to the town, to build the wall proper,
with its towers and crenellations. Behind the second ditch the
, or advanced-wall, was built. This was much lower
text has only once been published, namely, in the I'eteres mathematici (Paris,
Imprimerie Royale, i vol. folio). It is generally known as Philonis Byzantii liber
qtiintus. The text from which Graux gives so many quotations in his Note sur les
fortifications de Carthage differs sensibly from the one published ; Graux had a new
edition of Philo in preparation, and had therefore collated the three extant manu-
scripts of his work. An able officer of engineers, M. Albert de Rochas d'Aiglun,
published a translation of it in 1872 under the title: Poliorcetique des Grccs. Traite
de fortification, d'atta</ne et de defense des places, par Philon de Byzance, traduit pout-
la premiere fois du Grec en Fiancais, commente et accompagne defragments explicatifs
tires des ingenieurs et liistoriens Grecs ; Paris, 8vo, 1872 (Tanera).
1 A. DAUX, Recherches sur forigine et I" emplacement des tmporia phcniciens dans
le Zeugis et le Byzacium (i vol. 8vo, 1869), p. 278.
FORTIFIED WALLS. 357
than the main rampart, but it afforded a shelter to the catapults
and other machines, and to the troops who served them. Finally,
behind the third ditch, there was an outer defence of palisades,
which served to at least prolong the siege and to put off for some
days the moment when the main wall should be seriously attacked.
Daux tells us that he found easily traceable remains of a triple
enceinte like this both at Thapsus and Adrumetum. We give his
restorations (Figs. 246 and 250). Thus there is perfect accord
between the theories handed down to us by Philo and the evidence
collected by examining the Punic ruins. Appian himself admits
the distinction between the wall and the advanced-wall, if not in
so many words, at least by implication.1
The idea of three exactly similar walls must, therefore, be given
up ; and the dimensions given by Diodorus and Appian must be
taken as applying to only one of the three, the innermost one,
which was the real bulwark of the city. When the historians of
the siege spoke of the triple wall, it was merely to distinguish
between the fortifications where they were complete, on the side
towards the isthmus, and the mere skirt of masonry by which the
town wras embraced on the side towards the sea. So that we
must not multiply by three the numbers given by Appian for
elephants, horses, and foot-soldiers. We must be content with
300 elephants, 4,000 cavalry, and 20,000 infantry, all of whom
could easily, according to Graux, have found accommodation in
the casemates of a single wall, especially as it was not less than
7,000 yards long. The distance from the Lake of Tunis to the
Lake of Soukhara, across the isthmus, is about 5,500 yards, and we
must allow at least 1,500 for the windings of the rampart, for its
salients and re-entering angles.
A detailed discussion of the topography of Carthage would here
be out of place, but it is important that her fortifications should be
clearly understood. Even when shorn of the magnitude ascribed
to them by some writers, they still remain perhaps the most
1 APPIAN, viii. 97. He speaks of the TrpoT^urp-a. at the end of this paragraph,
and in an earlier passage we should no doubt read TrpoTeix'oyw* instead of the
cTrtTei'xio-px of the manuscripts. Graux's correction to that effect seems beyond
dispute ; the word «riTeix«r/ia has quite a different meaning. No other word but
irporeixurfia could be rightly opposed to ra vi/^Xa retx7?, " the elevated wall," which
Censorinus wished to attack after having filled up the ditch and beaten down the
rampart low enough.
35^ HISTORY or ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKI'KNDENCIES.
important work of Phoenician engineers. And they were impos-
ing by their workmanship as well as their mass ; their masonry
has a regularity that we find in no other work of the same race.
Of this we may judge from the section of the walls of Byrsa
uncovered by Beule (Fig. 47). He was mistaken in thinking this
fragment belonged to the great wall ; it formed part of the defences
of the citadel, but we have no reason to believe that the wall of
the Acropolis and the great rampart in the plain were not built in
the same fashion.
As at Eryx, the stones are set without mortar, and the hori-
zontality of the courses is carefully preserved. But more care has
been taken over the face of the structure ; most of the stones
are of exactly the right height for the course in which they are
placed, but there are some which encroach upon those above and
below, and, being held by tenon and mortise, add greatly to the
solidity of the work. None of those hollows filled in with small
stones which we encountered at Eryx are to be seen here. Joints
are almost always so placed as to stand upon the centre of the
blocks below them. The perfection of the finest Greek masonry
is not reached, but looked at from a little distance the whole has
much the appearance of a Greek structure, and we are driven to
ask whether the masons who built the enceinte of Carthage, or
at least that part which has been recovered, may not have found
their models in some of the buildings on the neighbouring island
of Sicily. The walls of Carthage were often repaired,1 and we
have no reason to suppose that the fragment laid bare by Beule
dates from a very remote epoch or belongs to the primitive defences
of the town ; most likely it was built about the time of Regulus
or Agathocles, in the fourth or third century before our era.
The following is Beule's description of the foundations he dis-
covered to the south of Byrsa, about sixty feet below the present
surface of the ground, and beneath a thick layer of ashes, which
show how terrible was the conflagration in which Carthage dis-
appeared. " Imagine a wall thirty-three feet seven inches thick,
built entirely of large blocks of tufa ; not massive, but containing
chambers as shown in the annexed figure (Fig. 251). Standing
outside Byrsa one looks upon the wall which faced the enemy ;
it is six feet eight inches thick. Behind it runs a corridor six
feet four inches wide ; from this open a number of apse-ended
1 Livv, xxx. ix.
FORTIFIED WALLS.
chambers separated from the corridor by walls three feet four
inches thick .... they are backed against the hill of Byrsa and
their end walls are three feet four inches thick at their thinnest
parts. The chambers themselves are fourteen feet deep and
twelve feet eight inches wide ; they are separated from one
another bv walls three feet eicrht inches thick. These chambers
* o
form a continuous series and their small size allows the wall to
remain practically as strong as if they did not exist."
These last words contain a mistake which has already been
pointed out.2 A wall little more than six feet thick would oppose
but a slender resistance to a great ram put in motion by thousands
of vigorous arms. It is likely that the section of the wall found
intact by Beule represents not the first of the two stories of
chambers indicated by Appian,3 but the very foundations, the
substructures of the rampart. Sunk into soft rock which supported
FIG, 251. — Plan of the wall of Byrsa. Carthage. From Beule.
them on two faces, they must have escaped the destruction which
overtook the rest of the building. The upper part of the wall
must have been solid or nearly so for the whole of its thirty feet
of thickness if it was to resist the ram. The chambers must have
been in the upper part of the structure, and beyond the reach of
that murderous engine. At Thapsus Daux found that above the
ground the wall had a solid thickness of twenty-one feet four
inches ; and Thapsus was only a town of the second class, so that
we should find nothing to surprise us in an excess of one-third in
all the measurements of the Carthaginian ramparts.
Beule" thought the vaulted chambers above mentioned (Fig. 251)
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, pp. 59, 60.
- DAUX, Reclurches sur les origines et I emplacement des emporia pheniciens, pp.
194-196.
3 APPIAN, viii. 98.
VOL. I. 3 A
362 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
were store-rooms ; elephants and horses would not, he says, be
lodged on the abrupt slopes of the acropolis. Hut perhaps the
most probable explanation of chambers like these, lying upon the
rock and all communicating with each other, is to suppose that
they were cisterns or reservoirs.1 It would be easy to keep them
always full, for the catching surface at command was great, and
nothing but a good system of pipes and channels was required for
its proper utilisation. Such a precaution seems to have been
universal in Punic fortifications ; this same arrangement has been
found at Adrumetum, at Utica, at Thapsus, and at Thysdrus. In
.this respect foresight was carried so far that even the second line
of defence, standing some forty to fifty yards in front of the great
rampart, was supplied with similar chambers (Fig. 249). The
mercenaries who formed the garrison thus had their own supply
of water beneath their feet and did not need to encroach upon the
resources of the townsfolk.
From all these facts and considerations we may gather the
following general idea as to the constitution of the great rampart
of Carthage. Above the cisterns hidden in its foundations the wall
must have been practically solid for a considerable height, that is
to say, up to above the highest point to which a battering-ram could
reach. There was nothing, however, to forbid the erection of
stables for horses and elephants immediately behind the rampart.
Above the solid part of the wall there were chambers, either
vaulted or ceiled with timber, in which soldiers could be lodged
and war material stored. There may have been one or two
rows, or one or two stories of these chambers, as Appian tells us,
and their arrangement may have varied in order to fit the trace of
the wall. Their front walls must have been very thick, and
pierced with loopholes. Above them ran the barbette. At
regular distances of two plethra, or 206^ feet, rose the square
towers with which the wall was flanked.2 Being higher than the
curtain by two stories they enabled the defenders to pour missiles
on the flank of an assailant even after he had reached the summit
of the wall, while they afforded a post of vantage for artillery.8
1 DAUX, Recherches, pp. 190-192. On this point GRAUX is of the same opinion
as Daux. Note, p. 196.
2 It is from APPIAN (viii. 95) that we get this distance of two plethra for the
intervals between the towers ; he also tells us that the towers were four stories
high. 3 DAUX, Recforches, pp. 193, 194.
FORTIFIED WALLS. 363
The width and depth of the upper chambers were quite in-
dependent of the size of the subterranean cisterns, because the
two were separated by a huge mass of solid masonry. Any
restoration of the upper part of the rampart can hardly be more
than conjecture, and it is therefore as a sort of graphic hypothesis,
if we may be allowed the phrase, that we have reproduced the
principal wall of Thapsus as restored by Daux (Fig. 240). Some
of its details may be open to dispute, but on the whole it is not
without probability.
Here we must bring this study of Phoenician defences to an
end. Perhaps it is already too long, but we were tempted to
discuss the question in some detail because we thought the prin-
ciples of the Greeks as laid down by Philo were to be traced in
the plan of the ramparts of Carthage. On the other hand the
Carthaginian masonry, as we see it at Byrsa, is connected with the
much earlier system in use at Arvad and Sidon by the intermediate
stage illustrated by those walls of Eryx on which the Phoenician
mason's marks may still be traced. And who knows but that the
Tyrian and Carthaginian engineers contributed much by their
example towards the preparation of those rules and formulae which
the Greek theorists drew up under the successors of Alexander ?
The ramparts of Tyre have disappeared even more completely
than those of Carthage, but is it possible they could have offered
so long and stubborn a resistance to the Macedonian attack had
they been otherwise than admirably designed and amply provided
with military engines ? During the whole duration of the famous
siege the Tyrian artillery held its own with that of Alexander.
Tyre fell not because her defenders were less skilled or less
inventive than her assailants, but because Alexander was gifted
with a boldness of imagination and a prodigious energy which did
not hesitate to attack nature herself. At Tyre, as on all the
battle-fields of Europe and Asia on which Greece was then a
combatant, she triumphed through the impetuous genius of the
young hero — I had nearly said the young god — by whom she
was led. And science carried on the work begun by arms. The
Greek language soon became a kind of universal tongue ; under-
stood almost to the Indus, it allowed many active spirits to set
about the inventory of the Greek inheritance ; the traditions of
that old eastern world whose course seemed to be over were
gathered up ; every technical formula or receipt, all the secret
364 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKI-KNDKNCIKS.
processes elaborated during centuries of unceasing work, were
registered for the benefit of the new power. A rich and indus-
trious community like that of the Phoenicians must have counted
for much in such an inventory. Their wealthy cities had such
treasures to guard that they must have spared no time or trouble
in supplementing their military weakness in the field by the
strength of their ramparts and the efficiency of their artillery.
The Greeks were the first to compile treatises on the subject,
treatises which did not become obsolete till the invention of gun-
powder, but no doubt they owed more than one idea and useful
suggestion to the men who built the ramparts of Sidon, Tyre, and
Carthage.
§ 2. — Towns and Hydraulic IVorks.
The remains of Phoenician towns are even slighter than those
of their defences. Here and there a rocky site bears traces of
the buildings for which it once supplied a foundation (Figs. 37 and
38), some of them having been partly cut from its mass. Such
buildings, however, only stood on the outskirts or suburbs of
cities. Within the ramparts the population was so closely packed
that houses had to be carried to a great height; at Tyre, Strabo
tells us, they were higher than at Rome, and those of Arvad were
no less lofty.1 In one district at least of Carthage, along those
three great streets of the commercial quarter which led from the
bazaar up to Byrsa, the closely packed houses were six stones
high ; 2 they had flat roofs and the streets were narrow.3 With a
climate like that of Syria and North Africa wide streets would
have been a waste of space. To get some idea of the internal
appearance of one of these Phoenician cities it is enough to have
penetrated into the old parts of Naples and Genoa, or, without
going so far, to have visited the old Breton city of St. Malo, which
in the close embrace of its walls has been compelled to turn every
foot of soil to good account, and to push its roofs so near the sky
1 STRADO, xvi. ii. 23 and 13.
" APPIAN, viii. 128.
3 This we gather from Appian's narrative. He speaks of the combats which went
on on the roofs when the Romans attacked this quarter, and of the bridges they
threw across from one block to another as they gradually made their way.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 365
that from its upper stories a wide sea view can everywhere be
obtained in spite of the surrounding ramparts.
But even at the height of its prosperity, St. Malo was hardly
more than a sailor's town, while the great Phoenician cities had
more strings to their bow than navigation and its profits ; they
• were great manufacturing centres ; they deserved to be compared
to our great industrial cities, such as Birmingham, Leeds, Elbeuf,
or Roubaix. In some quarters at least the air was full of the
sounds and the scent of factories. " At Tyre," says Strabo,
" all the most favourable conditions for dyeing were united ; and
it must be allowed that although they added so much to the wealth
of the place the presence of so many dyeworks took away from its
advantages as a place of residence."
A whole quarter of the city was occupied by industrials, but
there was another, the highest and most open no doubt, where the
dwellings of the rich merchants who sent a fleet to sea as each
spring came round, were grouped. Such men as these \vould
require houses whose external aspect should announce the wealth
of their owner to every passer by. The houses of Tyre, of Sidon,
and of other Phoenician cities were admired by the ancients and
taken as standards and points of comparison.2 And the rich men
of whom we speak would not be satisfied with their town houses,
which must have been cramped for room like every other building
within the walls.3 It was in the suburbs, outside the walls, that
they had their favourite dwellings, the homes in which they
enjoyed their wealth and the repose it gave. The people of
Arvad and Tyre crossed the narrow straits dividing their cities
from the mainland ; those of Sidon and Berytus had only to spread
themselves over the fine forests and flowery plains to get all they
wanted. There they had the villas and small farms, the sites of
which can be divined by the modern explorer from the traces they
have left in the soil.4 It was in these plains that those agricultural
1 STRABO, xvi. ii. 23.
2 JOSEPHUS, De Bello Judaico, ii. xviii. 9. Seven hundred years before Ezekiel
had already said of Tyre : " Thy builders have perfected thy beauty" (xxxviii. 4), and
again "They shall break down thy walls and destroy thy pleasant houses" (xxvi. 12).
3 See MENANDER, quoted by Josephus, Ant. Jud. viii. v. 3. The historian says of
Hiram : ovros ex000"6 T° *vpox<»Pov- Another historian of Tyre, Dios, refers to the
same works and also to those by which a small islet with a temple was added to the
principal island QOSEPHUS, Ibid.}.
4 RENAN, Mission, pp. 633-635, 638, 639, 644, 668, 669, £c.
366 HISTORY UK ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS I)KI«KNI>ENCIES.
traditions were born which were afterwards perfected by the
Phoenicians of Africa and finally embodied by Mago, the Car-
thaginian captain, in a book which the Roman Senate caused to
be translated into Latin.1
Before these Syrian plains would yield plentiful crops they had
to be well watered, and the crowded urban population required
their supply of the same element. Accustomed as they were to
rock cutting, the Phoenicians would have no difficulty in making
conduits to carry the torrents of the Lebanon on to and across the
plain. But of all the hydraulic works in Syria which date from
the Phoenician period the most curious is the well of Ras-cl-Ain,
" The head of the springs." About four miles south of Tyre and
a few hundred yards from the sea several springs rise with great
force within thick-walled octagonal towers, which are eighteen to
twenty feet high. There are four of these fountains. The most
abundant is ninety-three feet deep. " They are true artesian
wells, fed by the rains and snows of the Lebanon. The arrange-
ment of the cretaceous strata in the neighbouring mountains
leaves no doubt upon the point. The basins are natural openings
through which the water is forcibly driven by strong pressure
from below."
Is it to the Romans or to the Phoenicians that the credit of
having regulated the openings, of having built those solid sheaths
of masonry by which the water is driven to a convenient height
above the plain, is due ? We are inclined . to believe that the
Phoenicians \vere the first to think of the contrivance, which is as
effective as it is simple.3 These are the only springs in the whole
neighbourhood of Tyre, and so long as the water was not con-
strained to mount in a tube it must have been lost, as it is now, in
1 COLUMELLA, I. i. 13.
2 LORTET, La Syrie d'aujourifhui, p. 128.
3 The following passage from STRABO shows that the Phoenicians had grasped
the physical law by virtue of which the water rises in the artesian well. " In war
time they obtain water a little in front of the city, from the channel (between the
island and the mainland), in which there is an abundant spring. The water is
obtained by letting down from a boat, which serves for the purpose, and inverting
over the spring (at the bottom of the sea), a wide-mouthed funnel of lead, the end of
which is contracted to a moderate sized opening ; round this is fastened a leathern
pipe which we may call the neck, which receives the water forced up from the spring
through the funnel. The water first forced up is sea-water, but the boatmen wait for
the flow of pure and potable water, which is received into vessels ready for the
purpose, in as large a quantity as may be required, and carry it into the city."
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 367
the neighbouring sea. But we know that the whole of the district
was inhabited by a dense population and that it was highly
cultivated ; l we may therefore conclude that the Phoenicians did
not fail to discover how to utilise the springs to the best advantage,
and the only way was to make use of the principle to which we
have alluded. The walls must have been repaired and restored
more than once, and parts may be pointed out which bear signs of
a Roman hand,2 but in the canal which runs from the springs
along the foot of the hill and in the direction of Tyre, Gaillardot,
an excellent judge, recognizes a system of masonry which has
nothing either Greek or Roman about it. " Wherever the conduit
is still covered it presents, almost without exception, bare walls
formed partly by the rock itself, partly by huge stones fixed
without a trace of cement."
To the Romans, of course, belongs the aqueduct carried on
arches from the Tell-el-Machouk, opposite Tyre, across the isthmus
of Alexander, so as to bring the water of the Ras-el-Ain to the
city itself. When this aqueduct was built the walls about the
springs were perhaps heightened and the conduit repaired. But
this very enterprise was no doubt suggested by the skill shown by
the ancient Tyrians in compelling the column of water to mount to
a convenient height. Before this great work was carried out Tyre
depended for much of her consumption upon watering places on
the neighbouring coast. An Egyptian traveller who visited Tyre
about the end of the reign of Rameses II., says with surprise,
" They carry water there in boats."4 A conduit must have brought
the waters of the Ras-el-Ain down to reservoirs constructed on the
sea-shore, opposite the island, whence it was carried in skins to
the city. But Tyre was too often menaced by her enemies to
trust entirely to such a supply as this. Every house, like the
houses of modern Syria, was provided with a cistern ; this is
proved by the simple fact, which we know on the authority of a
Phoenician writer, that for five years maritime Tyre was able to
do without a supply from terra firma? Shalmaneser, who was
1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 577, 579, 582, and 634. 2 Ibid. p. 593.
3 Ibid. p. 594. Conf. p. 582.
4 Papyrus Anastasi, i. pi. xxi. 1. 1,2. Conf. CHABAS, Le Voyage dun Egyptien,
pp. 165-171 (Chalons, 1866).
5 Menander makes a clear distinction between the Trora/xos (the Leontes which
flows into the sea north of Tyre) and the vSpaywytat (the wells of Ras-el-Ain and the
368 HISTORY or ART IN PIKKMCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
unable to attack the city for the want of ships, placed a guard at
the mouth of the Leontes and at the springs of Ras-ct-Ain. At
Arvad there were cisterns cut in the rock which are still in use.1
In order to catch all the rain-water they could it is probable
that the Phoenicians paved their streets, squares, and courtyards
with large stone slabs ; we know that the Carthaginians did so.
The aqueduct through which water flowed to the city from Mount
Zaghouan, a work which has been lately re-established, dates only
from the Roman epoch. The real Carthage, the great queen of
the Mediterranean, drank nothing but rain-water, and in order
that the autumn deluges and the rare showers of the other seasons
should be gathered to the last drop, every surface had to be
brought into requisition. The houses had flat roofs covered with
concrete, whence the water poured down into hidden reservoirs.
There were public cisterns in the lower parts of the town for the
rain-water from the streets. The Carthaginians had the credit in
antiquity of being the inventors of street paving.2 When the
soil is removed to any depth, these slabs are found still in place
under the thick layer of ashes which represents the city of
Hannibal. Under the slabs there are drains carefully laid, with
their mouths under the edges of the foot-paths.3 The visitor to
modern Tunis as he sinks in the mud or dust of the unpaved
streets must often wish that the degenerate heir of Carthage was
more worthy of its ancestor in this matter of street engineering.
At Malka, north of Byrsa, to the south-east of this citadel and
near the harbour, considerable remains of the ancient reservoirs
may be traced ; and it is difficult to discriminate in these ruins
between what belongs to Roman and what to Punic Carthage.
No doubt when the town was restored by her Roman Emperors
and became once more a great and populous city, the remains of
the ancient works must have been utilised for new reservoirs, but
conduits which ran from it). His curious account of the blockade is quoted by
JOSEPHUS (Ant.Jud., ix. xiv. 2). * RENAN, Mission, p. 40.
2 SERVIUS, Ad ALneidem, \. 422; ISIDORE, Origines, xv. xvi. 6; " Primi Poeni
dicuntur lapidibus vias stravisse." We are tempted to believe, with Servius, that
Virgil was alluding to these paved streets of Carthage in the passage where he
describes the astonishment of /Eneas at his first sight of the town built by Dido :
Miratur portas, strepitumque et strata viarum.
8 Excavations of M. Gouvet, a French engineer in the service of the bey of
Tunis. DAUX, Recherches snr les emporia phhriciens, p. 55.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS.
369
the task must have been carried out by the methods familiar to
the Roman engineers. Daux thus describes what are called the
"small cisterns," those near the sea (Fig. 252) : " The reservoirs
of Carthage were peculiar in their arrangement ; at the four angles
of their vast parallelogram and in the centre were distributed six
circular filters covered by as many domes or cupolas, which by
their graceful lines varied the monotony of the barrel vaults which
covered two rows of long parallel basins." Before ascribing these
FIG. 252. — Reservoirs ot Carthage. From Davis.1
\
cisterns to the Carthaginians we must stop for a moment to
inquire whether arches were built in Africa before the time of the
Roman Conquest.
In order to solve this question we must divide it, and inquire,
first, whether there is any reason to suppose that the Phoenicians
were ignorant of the arch. It is difficult to believe they were
o J
unacquainted with its principle. They must often have seen
1 Carthage and Her Remains, p. 392.
VOL. I.
v;7o HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS I)KN:NI>K.\CII.S.
arches both in Egypt and Assyria, and we know their minds were
continually open to the reception of new ideas and impressions
from those neighbouring countries in which they passed so much
ol their time. Moreover, we have at least two examples of a
Phoenician vault : in the tomb of Esmounazar we found in place
some of the voussoirs of an arch which can only be attributed
to the same period as the sarcophagus which lay beneath it
(Fig. 112), and in a neighbouring tomb-chamber Gaillardot en-
countered the same arrangement.1 That we are able to point
only to these two examples in the country between Arvad and
Tyre is perhaps a matter of chance ; a new exploration may
give to-morrow what we seek in vain to-day ; but on the whole
there is reason to believe that in Syria itself the Phoenicians only
made a very restricted use of the arch, at least in their monu-
mental work. We must remember that their architecture was
based on forms derived from rock cutting, and that it was
accustomed to huge units, so that its traditions were to some
extent opposed to the arch It is to the necessity for covering
voids with small stones that the employment of the arch may as
a rule be traced. Moreover, when a vault has to be built of stone
an amount of careful calculation and elaborate dressing has to be
gone through, which was foreign to the ideas of the workmen of
Arvad and Gebal.
Supposing, however, that the Phoenicians were not quite
ignorant of the special advantages of the arch, they may well
have been driven to make more frequent use of it in their western
colonies. In the first place, a change of surroundings and of
materials brings with it a corresponding change in methods, even
when the latter are deeply engrained in the habits of a people
And the arch played a very important part in the architecture of
those Etruscans and Latins with whom first the Syrians, and after
them the Carthaginians, had so much to do. Kept together by
the necessity for resisting the enterprises of the Phocaeans, the
Etruscans and Carthaginians lived, as a rule, in great amicability
one with the other, and it was not until after many centuries of
friendly commercial relations that Rome and Carthage engaged in
the long and sanguinary duel which we know as the Punic wars.
During those centuries many African merchants must have visited
the shores of the Tiber ; they must have seen the vaulted drains
1 RKNAN, Mission, pp. 437 and 442.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 371
which carried off the superfluous waters of the marshes, and the
majestic arches which afforded a passage through the walls of
fortified towns. Perhaps it was from the gateways of Latin and
Etruscan cities that the idea of the posterns at Eryx was taken
(Figs. 232 and 233). But here the arch is only apparent ; its
curves are not turned by voussoirs, they are cut in the mass of
the horizontal courses. All those who have studied the ruins in
Tunisia agree in ascribing to Rome the keyed arches which are
found at many points of the old African province, and yet from
Beule's description — which, by the way, is much too summary — of
the chambers in the foundations of the Byrsa wall, it would rppear
that they were roofed with surbased spherical vaults.1
We may then admit, until proof to the contrary, that the
Carthaginians either did not use the keyed-masonry arch at all or
used it very little ; but we are told by one of the most careful
students of their architecture, that they obtained a similar result
with the use of arches turned in a kind of concrete, " small stones
set in a bath of mortar mixed with sand so fine that its grains are
hardly to be distinguished, and with lime made from the same
material as the small stones. To this mixture lime has given a
consistence and homogeneity equal, and not seldom even superior,
to that of the stone employed." *
Many things lend probability to this hypothesis. At Carthage
the building stone available was of very mediocre quality. It was
a calcareous tufa, which rapidly lost consistency underexposure to
the weather. Its durability wyas enhanced by covering those faces
of any building which were turned towards the sea with a coat of
tar.3 Such a proceeding must have been rather costly, and the
desire to avoid the expense must have caused concrete of one kind
or another to come into very wide use. The Carthaginians made
use of pise. In the first century of our era the remains of edifices
in beaten earth, viz., ramparts and guard-houses, were to be seen
both in Spain and Africa.4 These the Romans did not recognize
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, p. 59. '2 DAUX, Recherches^ p. 117.
3 PLINY, Hist. Nat. xxvi. 48.
4 The passage in PLINY on which we found this statement is interesting enough
to deserve quotation : " Quid ? Non in Africa Hispaniaque ex terra parietes,
quos appellant formaceos, quoniam in forma circumdatis utrinque duabus tabulis
inferciuntur verius quam instruuntur sevis durant, incorrupt! imbribus, vends, ignibus,
omnique caemento firmiores ? Spectat etiamnunc speculas Hannibalis Hispania ;
terrenasque turres jugis montium impositas." — Hist. Nat. xxxv. 47.
37-1 HISTORY OF ART IN PII»EXICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
as their own work, and the only builders who preceded them in
the countries in question were the Phoenicians. The popular
tradition was the right one. In Spain the name of Hannibal was
attached to some of these erections, in which the people saw posts
of observation (speculee) raised by the famous captain on the
summits of the hills.
The evidence of Pliny is very precise ; there is only room for
doubt on one point. Can we believe that buildings which had
outlasted the centuries were of earth shaped in a mould ? Must
they not rather have been of concrete, or rubble, that is to say of
a material in which a cement of lime and sand were the chief
constituents ? It is certain that even on the Syrian coast the
Phoenicians made use of cement to hold together the embank-
ments with which they increased the narrow sites of their towns.
At Tyre especially banks were raised, which, we are told, resemble
the mole of Algiers in hardness.1 In Africa MM. Daux and
Tissot ascribe to the same epoch the rubble vaults in the fortress
of Bulla Regia, in the valley of the Bagrada, and the military fort
at Utica ;2 but this attribution may be, and, as a fact, it has been,
contested. A recent discovery, however, has brought to light a
structure in which this method of building is combined with signs
of a Phoenician origin which cannot be disputed. In the report of
Captain Vincent addressed to the Academic dcs Inscriptions on the
26th September, 1883,* we read : " Upon the mamelon known as
Bon-amba, situated at a distance of about 2,000 yards from the
town of Beja, a mass of red concrete crops up here and there
through the soil. It is very hard, and full of large blocks of stone ;
it extends for a considerable distance right and left of the Place
d'Annes. In March, 1883, some workmen were digging a channel
to carry off the rain-water, when they brought to light a vaulted
chamber with some human bones, a lamp and a funerary urn in it."
This discovery gave the hint, and more excavations were
undertaken, with the result that a hundred and twenty tombs were
1 REXAN, Mission, p. 560.
2 CH. TISSOT, Le Bassin du Bagrada et ia rote romaine de Carthage a Hippone par
Jl nl la fiegia, p. 37 (Memoires prcsentes par divers savants al Academie des Inscriptions,
1 88 1, 4to) ; DAUX, Rccherches sttr les emporla pheniciens, Etude sitr la ville d' Utiqite et
st'S environs.
3 The report is dated from Badja, a small town situated to the west of Tunis, on
the site of the ancient Vaja, where Captain Vincent commanded a small French
garrison.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 373
found and opened. So far as we can judge by the figures in the
report there is little variety in their form, which is roughly that of
a boot. The chamber is reached by a rectangular well, whose
walls are built of large stones. The well is from twenty to thirty
inches square at the mouth, and from five to ten feet deep. At
its lower extremity it becomes lost in the chamber to which it
gives access. The chamber itself, " hollowed out of the concrete-
like masonry," resembles a kind of pocket, and has the longitu-
dinal section, as a rule, of a surbased spherical vault. These
chambers are more rough, irregular, and insignificant, whether we
look at their dimensions, the quality of their workmanship, or the
objects found in them, than any of the sepulchral groups found in
Syria, Cyprus, or Sardinia. The chambers are all small, and the
pots they contain very common, but this humble provincial grave-
yard is interesting because its date can be fixed, both by what we
do and what we do not find in it. There is not one of those
Latin inscriptions which abound in all the cemeteries of Roman
Africa ; this by itself is enough to suggest that these tombs were
built before the country was made into a Roman province. And
everything confirms this first impression. The arrangement of
the graves is characteristic of Phoenicia ; we find a well giving
access to a chamber in which the corpse is stretched upon the
ground. It may be objected that this method of entombment
may have remained in fashion with the Liby- Phoenicians even
after the fall of Carthage. But we have evidence that these
o w
graves must have been built before that catastrophe, or at least
not much later than the year 146, in the fact that a certain number
of bronze coins were found in them, and that all those coins were
Punic, with the well-known types of the horse and the palm-tree
(Fig. 253). l After the middle of the second century these pieces
were no longer struck, and the bronze money of Punic Carthage
can hardly have continued in circulation long after that date. From
1 " Several copper medals were found ; they were sometimes a horse's head, some-
times a galloping horse. On their face we find the originals of the facsimile given
in the Univers pittoresque, edition of 1844, article on Carthage by Bureau de la Malle
(plate vii. fig. 2, and plate viii. figs, i and 9)." — Reports of Captain VINCENT. The
coin reproduced on p. 374 from DURUY'S Histoire des Romaines (vol. i. p. 142) is not
one of those found in the graves at Badja, but it shows the same types. It is of
silver, and was most likely struck in Sicily. Obv., the forepart of a horse crowned by
victory, an ear of barley, and seven Punic letters read by M. de Saulcy as Kart-ha-
dast (Carthage) ; rev., a palm-tree and four Punic letters, Maknal, the camp.
v;74 HISTORV 01- Aur IN Pmr.NiciA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
all this it follows that the little cemetery dates from the period of
Carthaginian independence, and that before the Romans were
established in Africa their great rivals understood how to employ
concrete on a large scale ; so that we are free to believe that they
made use of it to build such things as the domes of their reservoirs
and the vaulted chambers of the admiralty at Utica.
Whatever may be the date of the walls and vaults which lie
open to the modern traveller in the great cisterns of Carthage, we
may be sure that the plan on which they are built dates from a
very early period in the history of African Phoenicia. In Car-
hage, as in many more of these African towns, the reservoirs were
divided into two series, which could be separated or allowed to
communicate at the will of their managers. The rain-water in-
o
evitably brought with it a considerable deposit of sand and earth,
so that by directing it into alternate basins one could be cleaned
Fir,. 253. — Carthaginian coin.
while the next was in use. By examining some rural structures
of the kind we shall see how this mechanism was worked.
The foresight which provided the large towns with plentiful
supplies of fresh water did not rest there ; it performed the same
service for those rural districts in which agricultural operations and
the rearing of great herds of cattle and horses could not be carried
on without a steady provision of water. From one end of Tunis
to the other the ruins of vast isolated reservoirs are encountered.
Those near towns are repetitions in small of the urban reservoirs ;
but in the more distant cantons we find cisterns open to the sky ;
as a rule these are in pairs, the one tangent to the other. The
best preserved of them all is on the road from Adrumetum to
Aquae Regime ; our Fig. 254 gives a good idea of its arrangement.
These two basins stand in the lowest part of the plain ; the
diameter of the larger varies from forty to about sixty-seven feet.
They may be compared to a pair of huge tuns in masonry. Their
1 1-;' » if W; W^: '•< • : '-': i '^ m*w
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS.
377
walls do not describe a circle but a regular polygon, whose visible
part rises from twenty-three to twenty-seven feet above the ground.
The contiguous reservoir is smaller ; its diameter is not more than
from twenty-four to twenty-eight feet, but it is rather deeper than
the other. At the point of junction there is a perpendicular slit,
about sixteen inches wide, which descends almost to the floor, and
allows the water to flow from one cistern into the other.
At the ground level a number of openings allowed the rain to
pour into the larger reservoir, where they deposited the earth,
sand, leaves, and other matters held in suspension. After the
rains were over the sluice was opened and the water allowed to
flow gently into the smaller reservoir, the whole thus acting as a
FIG. 255. — Plan of cistern. From Daux.
huge filter. The sluice was then reclosed and the water carried in
leather buckets to the thirsty cattle.
The weight of water inclosed in these basins exerted a very
strong thrust against their walls, and, warned no doubt by the
destruction of those first erected, the builders took precautions
against accident which seem to have been effectual in spite of their
naivett. At the points where the short stretches of straight wall
joined each other, strong buttresses were erected, both within and
without. To give our readers a clear idea of how this contrivance
was arranged we here insert a plan of the large basin (Fig. 255),
a cross section of the wall (Fig. 256), and an elevation of part of its
VOL. i. 3 c
378 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DKI-KNDF.NC ir.s.
external face (Fig. 257). In the latter figure the reader will notice
an ornamental detail. The wall is decorated at about half its height
with a moulding or string-course, which is turned in a semi-circle
o o
over the head of the buttress. Its section is that of a torus, the
one ornamental motive which is hardly ever absent from any
structure to which a Phoenician origin can be surely assigned.
All these annular reservoirs are built of concrete. The one we
have just described presents, moreover, one curious peculiarity ; it
affords a rare example of pure Phoenician workmanship still
existing side by side with Roman construction. During the
Roman period a large square filter was added to the larger
basin, and covered with a flat roof over a vault (Fig. 254). This
addition is built of rough stones arranged in regular courses ; its
angles are of dressed stone and the roof is a regular keyed vault.
FlG. 256. — Cross section of cistern
wall. From Daux.
FiG. 257. — Elevation of part of cistern wall.
From Daux.
The floor of the chamber is lower than that of the principal basin,
and the roof is higher than the summit of its wall. There is an
opening for ventilation in each of the four sides.
The advantages gained by this addition are obvious. The
water was protected from the sun, from dust, and from those sand-
laden blasts which are so common in this part of the world. The
way in which the water was admitted from the great basin into
this square filter was also an improvement upon that already
described. At the point of junction the wall was pierced by several
circular holes at vertical intervals of about twenty inches. These
holes were plugged during the rains, while the turbid water was
flowing into the great reservoir. Such a system allowed the flow
of water into the square receiver to be regulated and did away with
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 379
all risk of muddiness from the sediment with which even its
comparatively clean floor must have been covered.
We see then that in this building there were two clearly defined
systems of construction. In the one there were regular courses of
rough stone combined with angles of dressed masonry, and a
keyed vault ; in the other there was only a mass of concrete ;
walls, buttresses, even mouldings, all are of that substance.
Neither parts of the work can belong to the modern civilisation of
the country. It is many a long century since either the Moors or
the Arabs gave a thought to such an enterprise as this. They
have not even taken the trouble to keep the town reservoirs in
repair, so that it is in the last degree unlikely that they would
build such cisterns as these in the open country. Wherever they
have taken it into their heads to contrive some reserve of the
refreshing element they have been content with what are called in
Tunis feskias, a sort of pond surrounded by a wall, in which the
water is made fetid and unhealthy by the accumulated mud. We
may therefore ascribe both parts of the reservoir to the ancient
civilisation ; the two circular basins to the Carthaginians, the
square filter to their conquerors. The whole contrivance gives
striking evidence of that genius for adapting means to ends which
distinguished the Phoenician race.
At Malta, where springs are few and scanty, there are some fine
antique cisterns, some of which may well date from the Phoenician
epoch. We should be willing to recognize oriental hands in the
well-preserved structure known as the Gar-el-giganli, near the
harbour of Marsa Scirocco and the Bordj-en-Nadur, in which
Maltese scholars see the ruins of a temple to Melkart. It is built
entirely of good masonry. The stone roof lies on long architraves
of the same material, which are in turn supported by twelve piers
built up of large stones. A wide flight of steps gives access to
the reservoir, and the whole has an imposing look of strength and
simplicity.1
We should have liked much to know how those dwellings of the
great Phoenician merchants and manufacturers, in which all the
luxury of the ancient world was accumulated, were arranged and
furnished ; but details are wanting. It was once believed that
1 CARUANA, Report, p. 19. We have been compelled to refrain from reproducing
Mr. Caruana's illustration of this reservoir, because it contains certain incompre-
hensible details for which we should have had to find a conjectural explanation.
3&O HISTORY OF ART i\ PIKF.MCIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
some remains of Cyclopean masonry at Oum-el-Awamid had be-
longed to Phoenician houses,1 but after the remarks offered on the
question by MM. Thobois and Renan it seems difficult to assign
any date to these ruins. We can hardly avoid seeing in them the
work of some population who, perhaps at some comparatively
recent period, had settled upon an ancient site and appropriated
the materials they found upon it to their own use."
From such remains as these we can learn nothing about the
lofty houses of Tyre and Carthage. The latter must have had
porticoes, internal courtyards, and, on their upper stories, those
open galleries which an Italian would call toggle; such arrange-
ments would be demanded by the climate, and moreover we find
them actually figured in some of the carved pictures of the Assy-
rians, the near neighbours of Eastern Phoenicia.3 To build such
galleries and even to endow them with a certain elegance, no costly
FIG. 258. — Babe of column from a portico at Larnaca.
or stubborn materials were required. Timber alone was enough,
or nearly enough. This we realise when we stand in some of the
modern houses in these eastern towns and see arrangements which
may well have been handed down through many a long century.
Take, for instance, the following elements of a portico which occur
in a house at Larnaca, in Cyprus. Stone is used only for the base
of a wooden shaft (Fig. 258). The peculiar capital, of a design
which makes it thoroughly well fitted for its work, is of wood.
It supports an architrave, on which lie the ends of a number of
round beams, their other extremities being engaged in the wall.
1 DE SAULCY, Voyage d la Mer Morte, vol. i. pp. 46, 47 ; DE VOGUE, Fragments
dun Voyage en Orient, pp. 38, 41 et seq.
2 RENAN, Mission, pp. 704, 705, and plates 1., lii., liv., and Iv.
1 Art in Chaldcea and Assyria, vol. i. fig. 76.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS.
The row of small circles in which they terminate is not without
its charm (Fig. 259).1
FIG. 259. — Detail of portico at Larnaca.
The houses of our day and the ancient dwellings of Phoenicia
differ perhaps less in plan and their methods of construction,
FIG. 260. — Plan of ancient house at Malta. From Houel.
than in the choice of material and its arrangements. Where
1 We take this sketch from a travelling album of M. Saladin's.
382 HISTORY OK ART IN PIHF.VICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCES.
modern builders are content with hastily planed boards and pine
trunk beams, their ancestors would have employed cypress and
cedar, would have added a fine polish and perhaps ivory or metal
ornaments. " Thy builders have perfected thy beauty," says
Ezekiel in speaking of Tyre ; " they have made all thy boards
of fir-trees of Senir ; they have taken cedars from Lebanon to
make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made
thine oars ; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches
of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim."
FIG. 261. — View of ancient house at Malta. From Ilouel.
In our examination of tombs and temples we have found the
imitation of Egyptian types prevailing all over Phoenicia ; the same
tendency must have made itself felt in the arrangement and de-
coration of private dwellings. We find direct proof that it was so
in the remains of a small building at Malta, in which a traveller of
the last century, Houel, thought he had found the ruins of a Greek
house. We give a plan and perspective of this curious fragment
(Figs. 260 and 261). The best preserved thing about it is a square
tower (c ) carried on a base which is now almost entirely buried (a).
1 EZEKIEI,, xxvii. 4-6.
TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS.
383
It has a doorway (<?), and a window about three feet from the
ground (a). This tower is ten feet eight inches square, and eigh-
teen feet ten inches high. Houel was an intelligent observer, and
noticed the carefulness of the masonry and the singularity of the
cornice, but he knew little of oriental art and never thought of the
Phoenicians. Now, however, that we are better informed, we can
read what these huge, cementless blocks tell us as to their own
origin, and especially is all doubt removed by the aspect of the
FIG. 262. — The mausoleum at Thugga. From Bruce.
crowning ornament, which is neither more nor less than the
familiar Egyptian cornice.
We do not think, however, that this structure dates from a very
remote antiquity. The influence exercised by Egypt over Phoe-
nician art was so profound that it must have survived to a very late
period ; we have seen it, in Syria, in the decoration of buildings
which date only from the second century after Christ (Fig. 48).
384 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Further examples of the same thing are to be met with in Africa.
In Fig. 262 we reproduce a sketch, made by the famous traveller
Bruce, from that mausoleum of Thugga from which a bi -lingual
text, Libyan and Punic, was afterwards violently wrenched, to be
carried to London. Here the Greek style is predominant in both
details and general arrangement. This is natural enough, because
from the style and lettering of the inscription we may date the
building from the first century before our era ; it is in fact, the
tomb of some Numidian prince, erected in the years between the
fall of Carthage and its restoration under the Empire. And yet,
as Bruce instinctively perceived, there are signs of another tradition.
He made separate drawings of the angle pilasters (Fig. 263) whose
capitals are decorated with flowers recalling those on the lintel of
FIG. 263. — Angle pilaster.
Fir. 264. — Profile of cornice.
Ebba (Fig. 234), and also of a still more significant detail, namely,
the Egyptian cornice with which the tomb is finished above (Fig.
264)^ We again find this cornice in the well-known monument of
the Numidian kings, the Madracen, which dates from the end of
the second century before our era.2
1 We borrow these sketches of Bruce from plate xxiv. in the work entitled Travels
in the footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis, illustrated by facsimiles of his original
drawings, by Lieut-Col. R. L. PLAYFAIR ; London, 410, 1877.
2 Archaeologists are agreed in calling this the tomb of Massinissa or of Micipsa
(DE LA BLANCH!:RE, de rege Juba regisjubce filio, Paris, 1883). A complete description
of this monument, illustrated, is given by M. BRUNON in the Memoires de la Societ'e
archeologique de Constantine, 1873-74, pp. 304-353. A profile of the cornice is given
on plate vii.
HARBOURS 385
s; 3. — Harbours.
No inland Phoenician town is known to history. Of all the cities
built by the Syrian merchants the harbour is the vital organ, the
part that could not be injured or even threatened without grave
damage to the body as a whole.
And yet Phoenicia was not, like Greece, a country pre-destinetl by
nature to become a nursery for sailors and a school of navigation.
The coast of Syria offers none of those thoroughly sheltered roads,
or vast natural basins, which so abound on the coasts of Asia Minor
and the Hellenic peninsula.
From the mouth of the Orontes to the river of Egypt there is no
harbour to be for a moment compared to the Piraeus, the Golden
Horn, or the Gulf of Smyrna. The few capes are of too slight
projection and too straight to do much in the way of providing a
quiet anchorage. Few coasts are in fact more inhospitable, but all
the early Phoenician mariners required was a shelter to take the
wind out of their sails and allow them to be reefed, or a stretch of
sand on which, at the worst, they could beach their flat-bottomed
craft.
Wherever the coast did not rise in precipitous cliffs, creeks and
sandy beaches were frequent enough, and in their choice of
sites for their earliest settlements the Phoenicians appear to have
always pitched upon points which were at once easily defensible
and conspicuous from a distance. The islands and promontories
upon which they built their houses were so many landmarks.
Each had its peculiar physiognomy, and after a stormy night the
captain of any ship at sea could tell at a glance whether he had
Arad or By bios, Tyre or Sidon, on his bow or quarter.
With the passage of time open fishing boats developed into
decked ships, whose swelling sides were contrived to hold the
precious merchandise which came and went between Phoenicia and
the outer world. Basins had then to be provided in which vessels
could lie quietly while being laden or discharged. Every accident
of the land was made use of for the formation of real harbours ;
at some points, to the north of Sidon for instance, reefs which
broke the waves as they rolled in upon the land were turned to
VOL. i. 30
386 HISTORY OK ART IN PIKKNK IA AND ITS DKPKXUKXCIKS.
good account.1 Such natural barriers were made more efficient by
additions in concrete and masonry." Artificial breakwaters were
raised and the passages left through them so planned that they
could be closed by chains/5 Sidon had thus a closed harbour, as
the ancients called it,4 to the north, and to the south an anchorage
protected to some extent by two jutting points of land between
which ships could be dra\vn up on the beach when there was a
heavy sea. This was the Egyptian harbour. It is now aban-
doned and the harbour on the north serves the little modern
town. Tyre had two harbours, both closed ; the Sidon harbour to
the north, the Egyptian harbour to the south. The latter has
been entirely obliterated by the action of Alexander's Mole, which
intercepted the sands carried by the tide and caused them to be
deposited against the island. The small plan which we have
taken from M. Renan's great work (Fig. 5) gives his idea as to
the former position of the two harbours.0
Between the two, and along that part of the island which faced
the continent, were the ncoria (vewpia), or berths for the galleys.0
Stocks and building sheds were no doubt in a quarter by them-
selves, in a sort of dockyard communicating with the two com-
mercial basins. Here, too, were the ferries for the traffic between
the island and the mainland.
Let us suppose these harbours restored to their original
condition ; they would be more like one of our small fishing
harbours than such ports as Havre or Marseilles. Compared to
ours the ships of the ancients were of very small size ; they drew
little water and took up very little space ; moreover, they wrere not
always afloat ; they were laid up on land during the winter.
Fishing boats were drawn up on the beach, while the great ships
of war or commerce were dragged up over rollers into covered
sheds, where they waited for the reopening of the season. And
when the time came round they were not all rigged and launched
1 These rocks are described by M. REN AN in his account of Tyre (Mission,
PP 572, 573)
- On this subject see RENAN'S plate Ivii. and the accompanying text.
3 APPIAN (Anabasis, ii. xx. 6, 9 ; xxi. 8 ; xxii. 3 ; xxiv. i).
4 2t8;'n' TroAis Kai \ifjiijv KXeurro's. SCYLAX, Peripius, § 101.
•"' We must refer our readers to M. RENAN'S treatment of the question as to the
site of the Tyrian harbours (Mission, pp. 559-571)-
0 This, at least, we gather from a comparison of APPIAN'S description (Anabasis,
ii. 23) with that of DIODORUS (xvii. xlvi. i).
HARBOURS. 38;
at once. Each took its turn to glide into the water, receive its
cargo, and be off. It was only when a number arrived together
that there was any danger of overcrowding ; and it must not be
forgotten that during the summer those seas were, as a rule, so
calm that ships could ride at anchor for two or three weeks at a
time in such places as the roads of Beyrout or the south harbour
of Sidon.
The Phoenician mariners found more favourable conditions
outside their own country. Cyprus had no good natural harbours,
but the anchorages on the coasts of Greece, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia,
and Spain were many and excellent. In all those countries the
only difficulty was to make a choice. The Tyrians were the first
to discover the vast and well-sheltered roads of CaMiari and
o
Cadiz.
On the other hand there were no natural harbours, no closed
basins, in that part of Africa in which the Phoenicians chose to
settle. But here their Syrian experience in the working of rock
came in useful, and they soon succeeded in making up for the
churlishness of nature. They excavated ample basins on the very
beach, which they put in communication with the sea by narrow
and easily defensible openings. This Virgil knew :—
Hie portus alii effodiunt,1
he says of the subjects of Dido in the passage where he describes
the birth of the future enemy of Rome.
In the Phoenician language these artificial harbours were called
cot/ions (icdiOwva) ; at least that is the Greek and Latin transliteration
of the term.2 The word has not yet been encountered in its
native form, either in Hebrew or Phoenician ; but the etymology
proposed by the best Hebrew scholars confirms the definition
given by lexicographers ; " according to the latter cot/ions are
harbours not made by nature, but by the hands of man."
It is in speaking of Carthage that historians and grammarians
find occasion to explain this Punic term, but most of the Phoenician
1 Aineid, i. 427. ~ SERVIUS, ad &neidem, i. 427.
3 " Cothona sunt portus non naturales, sed manu et arte facti " (SERVIUS, 1. 1.). So
too FESTUS, s. v. Catones, which is obviously an error of the copyist for cotones.
Gesenius, and Brochart before him, derived this word from a root, k t, which in
Semitic languages implied an idea of cutting, earring (GESENIUS, Scripturcc
linguizque Phcenicft monumenta, p. 422 ; BRCCH^RT, Geographia sacra, p. 512).
388 HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
cities in Africa provided themselves with harbours after the same
fashion as Carthage — some of them even before her. An examina-
tion of the ground has brought traces of such works to light at
Adrumetum, Thapsus, and Utica.1
Hut if not the oldest, the harbours of Carthage were by far the
most famous of all. The following short but fairly precise account
of them is due, no doubt, to Polybius :
" The harbours of Carthage," says Appian, " were so arranged
that ships had to pass through one to reach the other ; on the
side towards the sea there was but one entrance, seventy feet
wide, which was closed with iron chains. The outer harbour,
intended for merchant-ships, was provided with numerous and
varied means of making them fast. In the middle of the second
harbour there was an island, around which, as well as round the
harbour itself, were wide quays. These quays presented a series
of slips in which 220 vessels could be accommodated. Above the
slips were store-rooms for rigging and other equipment. In front
of each slip rose two Ionic columns, which gave to the circum-
ference of harbour and island the look of a portico. On the
island a pavilion was built for the admiral, whence signals were
given by trumpet, orders sent by messengers, and a general
surveillance kept up. The island was near the entrance ; its
surface was raised considerably above the level of the water, so
that the admiral had a wide view over the sea outside, while
those who passed along the coast could not see into the harbours.
Even the merchants in the outer port could not see into the
military basin ; a double wall separated them from it, and they
had a gate of their own communicating with the town, into
which they could pass without going through the inner harbour."
There were, then, two harbours, an outer one communicating
directly with the sea, and an inner basin which could only be
reached through the first. The outer basin was the commercial,
the inner one the naval, harbour. The military pride of the
Carthaginians led them to decorate the latter with some richness ;
the expressions used by the historian permit us to guess that the
portico of which he speaks was not a real portico but only had the
1 BAKTH, Wanderungen durch die Kiislenliinder dcs Mitfclmccrs, vol. i. p. 150;
DAUX, Recherches sur les emporia phcniricns, pp. 169-171.
2 APPIAN, viii. 96.
HARBOURS.
189
Ionic
appearance of one,1 so that we may conclude that the
columns were engaged columns or pilasters.
Ever since the end of the seventh century of our era man has
done nothing at Carthage to preserve the work of man, and yet
the soil still bears unmistakeable siofns of the orreat undertakings
tj O O
by which the African city was made fit for the place it had to fill ;
ships can no longer penetrate into the two basins, which are almost
filled with mud, but their contours may still be followed, and even
Fi ;. 265. — Present condition of the Carthaginian harbours. From Davis.2
the site of the island on which the admiral's palace stood may be
clearly recognized (Fig. 265). The quays, with their sheds and
store-rooms still exist under the mud flats and sandy hillocks.
When pits are dug to a depth of eight or ten feet the basements of
all these structures are encountered, and, at a lower depth still, the
clayey sandstone which formed the bottom of the double basin.
But such excavations are very difficult and irksome, on account of
1 Eis eiA-oVa oroas rrjv oi/av. " Carthage and Her Remains, p. 128.
390 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
the water and mud which flow into them. Trenches were opened and
soundings made at various points by Beule and Count Camillo
Borgia, but the latter met his death through the miasmic vapours
of the place, and the former had to be content with very partial
explorations.1 By these Beule was led to believe that the inner
basin was circular,2 but the trace he proposed failed under
examination ; it was shown that no room could be found on it for
the number of slips provided in the military harbour of Carthage ; :!
moreover, the notion of a circular basin is implicitly contradicted by
the terms in which Appian describes Scipio's attack on the two
harbours: "At the beginning of spring Scipio wished to attack
Byrsa and the harbour which was called Cothon. During the
night Hasdrubal set fire to the quadrangular part of tJic Cothon?
believing that it would again be exposed to the assault of the
Roman general. . . . but Lelius surprised the opposite part of
the Cothon, which was circular, by escalade." 5
From this text it would appear that the harbour was rectilinear
on some sides and circular or elliptical on the others, and this in-
terpretation of the historian's words is confirmed by the obvious
fact that in a circular harbour surrounded by berths for laying up
vessels, a great deal of space, would be wasted, each berth would be
wider at the end farthest from the quay than it need be (see Figs.
266 and 267). Profiting by his experience at Utica, Daux proposes
a restoration which agrees much better with Appian's narrative ; he
thinks that the quays were curved at the northern and southern
ends of the harbour and straight on the east and west. He arranges
the slips along the two straight sides, so that their dividing walls
are parallel, which greatly simplifies the whole arrangement.
Beule' s thin-walled chambers he believes to have been cisterns.
From observations made at Adrumetum and still more at Utica he
is led to believe that between the sheds and the dock itself there
1 Upon BORGIA'S excavations see BEULE, Fouilles et dccourertes, vol. ii. p. 47.
2 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage. Les ports, pp. 89-118, and plate iv.
3 See especially the very close reasoning of JAL in his article on Carthage in the
Dictionnaire de biographie et d* histoire. Beule' failed to perceive that the walls, a foot
thick, which he found under the water, could not have been those against which the
Ionic columns mentioned by Appian were placed, because they were far too thin.
DAUX arrives at the same conclusion (Rechenhes, &c., pp. 181-189 and 300).
4 To /xe'pos TOU Ko^wvos TO TtTpaycuvov.
5 *EAa#e AaiXios orl Odrepa. TOV Ka»0a)vos es TO Trepi^epes avrov fiepos dveAtftiv.
APPIAN, viiL 127.
HARBOURS. 39!
were wide quays ; l the galleys, he thinks, were hauled up high and
dry after being relieved of their ballast and rigging.
Beule flattered himself he had found some remains of the Ionic
colonnade which surrounded the harbour.2 But our present business
is less with a superficial and foreign-born ornament like this than
FIG. 266. — The harbours of Carthage according to Eeule.
with the arrangement of the harbour as a whole, an arrangement
whose leading lines are given by the text of Appian, by the present
aspect of the ground, and by the scanty fragments of the ancient
structures brought to light by excavation ; these excavations, how-
ever, have only been partial and are now again filled up, so that it is
impossible to test the accuracy of conclusions which were arrived
FIG. 267. — Arrangement of the berths according to Beule.
at very quickly. Many details are still obscure. Were the cham-
bers beneath the water-level really cisterns, as Daux will have
1 DAUX, Recherche •$, p. 182.
2 Fouilles a Carthage, pp. 109, no, pi. v., figs. 8 and 9. Beule seems to have
been mistaken in placing a pair of coupled columns between each berth and the
next ; there could hardly have been more than one, for otherwise walls at their back
would have been so thick as to complicate the work unnecessarily and to waste
much space. Three columns were enough for two berths. So that we arrive at
a grand total, not of 440 columns, as Beule says (p. 1 10), but of 224. JAL, Dictionnaire,
P- 327-
39- HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKXICIA AND ITS DKI'F.XDENCIF.S.
it? How are we to reconcile the feeble diameter of the fluted
Ionic drums found by Beule with the scale of such architectural
decorations as would have been required to give any effect round
FIG. 268. — The harbours of Carthage according to Daux.
a basin larger, according to the explorer's own figures, than the
Place de la Concorde, at Paris ? }
1 The diameter of the fragment whose plan is given by Beule (pi. v. fig. 9) is
eighteen and three-quarters inches. Now if we take the greatest height
which could possibly go with such a diameter we arrive at columns between
fourteen feet four inches and fourteen feet ten inches high, at most. The
columns of Gabriel's two palaces on the north side of the Place de la Concorde
are thirty-two feet ten inches high, while, according to the figures given by
Beule, the naval dock at Carthage was about one-eighteenth larger in total area than
the Parisian place QAL, Dictionnaire^ p. 327). It will be seen therefore that Beule's
fragment can only have belonged to small columns better fitted for the decoration
of an attic or a balcony than to fill an independent place beside such a vast basin.
HARBOUR*. 393
The whole question still remains to be decided. Criticism has
demolished nearly all that Beule thought he had established. The
most probable part of his restoration is the circular island which
occupies the centre of the inner basin ; it must have been about
two and a quarter acres in extent. When the harbour was ex-
cavated this island was left standing, and wherever the clayey
sandstone of the site was wanting the deficiency was made up by
regular courses of large tufa blocks. The area thus obtained was
inclosed by a quay supported by two concentric walls of equal
height. The width of the quay was thirty-one feet including the
walls ; on the north a causeway thirty-two feet wide connected
the island with the land ; this causeway was bisected at
about half its length by a transverse opening fifteen feet wide
through which small boats could pass. There must have been a
bridge over the opening, like the canal bridges at Venice. As for
FIG. 269. — Cornice moulding. From Beule.
the war-galleys, there was plenty of room for them on each side of
the causeway, which was at the farther end of the dock, opposite
to the entrance from the commercial harbour."
Beule also discovered a few remains of the Carthaginian admiral's
palace. Large and carefully dressed stones seem to have been
used upon it. On several blocks which have been recognized as
parts of a cornice a coat of stucco, painted red and yellow, may
still be clearly traced. We give the profile of a moulding on
several of these blocks (Fig. 269). It recalls the section used by
the Greeks with their Doric order ; some more mouldings of the
same class are heavy and halting in execution. The building
itself must date from the Punic period ; like the colonnade about
the basin it seems to have been decorated in pure Greek style but
without much care or taste. No shafts or capitals have been found.
1 BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, p. 100.
VOL. I. i E
394 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
Perhaps there was no portico ; the walls may have been decorated
only with string courses and cornices. There were two stories,
because two distinct mouldings have been found, the one a string
course, eighteen inches deep (l"ig. 269), the other a cornice with a
depth of thirty inches.1
These fragments from the northern part of the island are distin-
guished from others found a little farther south by difference of
material as well as simplicity of workmanship. At the latter point
several drums of Numidian breccia and many fragments of marble
cornices, decorated with oves, lentils, acanthus and other leaves, have
been found. The old Carthaginian lodge was destroyed no doubt
when the place was captured by Scipio, and a Roman palace in all
the wealth of imperial luxury was raised in its stead when the city
was re- founded.
In the commercial port the combination of curved with straight
lines which we had to divine in the case of the naval harbour has
been actually traced. According to Beule's measurements the
channel between the two basins was about eighty feet wide, which
hardly differs from the width ascribed by Appian to the passage
between the commercial harbour and the sea. This passage must
have been altered in the Roman period, for we cannot recognize
the opening described by Appian in the narrow gate, only nineteen
feet six inches wide, which was discovered and measured by
Beule. That explorer seeks to explain the change by the
necessity under which the Carthaginians found themselves to
provide against the silting up of their harbour by the sand brought
down with the waters of the Bagrada. We need not go into this
question here, however ; it will be decided by some future ex-
cavator, who ought to find the ancient gates which, according to
Appian, were closed with a pair of chains.
Beule calculates that the combined area of the Carthaginian
harbours was twenty-three hectares sixteen ares (about fifty-eight
acres).2 The old harbour at Marseilles covers twenty-seven
hectares (about sixty-five acres) and is supposed to hold about
i, i oo merchant-ships. Taking the average tonnage of the ships
frequenting the port of Carthage to be about the same as that of
the vessels entering the harbour which was sufficient for the
1 BEUL£, Fonilles a. Carthage, pp. 103, 104.
2 If we adopt the trace proposed by Daux for the naval harbour we shall have to
modify these figures considerably.
HARBOURS. 395
traffic of the great French port for so many centuries, we may
conclude that the two basins could find accommodation for about
937 vessels. But the ships of the ancients were much smaller
than ours, and many of those entering the Carthaginian Cothon
were nothing more than decked boats, so that we may take a
much higher figure than 937 as representing the real capacity of
the port. We only make these comparisons to help our readers
to a true idea of what the harbours in which the war and merchant
fleets of Carthage found shelter really were. The word cothon
was used, we think, of the two great harbours taken together.
But those closed basins cannot have sufficed for the whole mari-
time trade of Carthage ; many vessels must have found moorings
in the Lake of Tunis, which was then much deeper than it is now ;
others would lie on the beach below the southern wall, in the
neighbourhood of the bazaar and the populous quarter which
stretched away to the west of the two great harbours. During
the fine season some would unload their cargoes on the quays
which lay along the sea to the east of the quarter commanded by
Byrsa.1 Farther to the north, between the two capes now called
Sidi-bou-Sdid and Kamart there was a fair anchorage opposite to
a sandy beach ; the name of La Marsa or " the harbour," which
still clings to the village in the neighbourhood of this little bay,
shows that vessels might there still be loaded and discharged.2
Finally, on the north-west, at one extremity of the great suburb
of Megalia, on the same side as the lake now known as the
Sebkha of Soukhara or El-Rouan, the sea washed the very foot of
the ramparts ; here must have been the harbour for the small
vessels trading with Utica and the neighbouring coast,3 so that
1 Traces of these quays have been found by every explorer.
2 This is now the watering-place of the district, the favourite spot being near the
villa called Palais- Khasnadar. The appearance of the ground here seems to show
that the sea has retreated ; in antiquity the bay must have been much deeper and
may have offered a very good anchorage.
3 M. Tissot told me that he found traces of an anchorage on this side. We know
from a passage in Appian that the Sebkha was once a wide bay with a sufficient depth
of water. The new consul, Emilius Scipio, entered the harbour of Utica with rein-
forcements in the evening, and during the same night sailed with his squadron to go
to the help of Mancinus ; he arrived next morning, just at the very moment that his
predecessor was about to succumb, and the Carthaginians beat a retreat as soon as
they caught sight of his ships (APPIAN, viii. 104). If he had had to double Cape
Carthage a whole day would not have been enough for the transit, so that we may
conclude that it was by the bay now represented by the Sebkha that he was so
306 HISTORY OF ART i\ PIKP.NICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
in time of peace the merchandise carried from place to place
along the length of those fertile shores could find its way into the
great maritime city through many inlets.
Utica was the oldest of the Phoenician settlements in this part
of Africa. It was built at the head of a well-sheltered bay, and
rather nearer Sicily than Carthage. The Bagrada, which once
fell into the sea between the two cities, ended by changing its
course and depositing its mud and sand in the bay of Utica,
which it in time filled up.1 The remains of the ancient city are
now little short of six miles from the sea (Fig. 27o).2
The site of Utica, as marked by the remains of several im-
portant buildings, corresponds very well with what we are told by
classic writers.3 There is an elongated hill whose north-western
extremity, formerly washed by the waves, is now surrounded by
reedy marshes. Further on in the same direction and just above
the swamp there is a platform of some height, separated from
the chief mass of the hill by an artificial channel in the rock
about 132 feet wide and 1,000 yards long. This platform re-
presents the seaward end of the promontory. It is an artificial
island, rendered so by the cutting of the channel just mentioned,
and must have been the original Utica, the seat of those primitive
Phoenician colonists who thought thus to protect themselves
against any sudden attack by the Libyan tribes about them.
And this channel formed an excellent dock as well as a defence ;
it was the commercial harbour as long as the town lasted. In
the same island there is a second artificial harbour ; it is rect-
angular in shape, and measures about 330 feet by no (7 on Fig.
270). This is supposed to have been the earliest of the harbours
of Utica.
rapidly carried to the seat of action, which may have been somewhere to the west
of Megalia.
1 On the course of this river and the successive displacements of its mouth see
CH. TISSOT, Le Bassin du Bagrada tt la vote romaine dc Carthage a Hippone par
Bulla Regia (410, 1884, in the M'emoires presences par divers savants A I' Academic
des Inscriptions).
2 The topographical sketch which we borrow from M. TISSOT {Le Bassin du
Bagrada, pi. vi.) is nothing but plate ix. of the work of Daux ( Vue a" Utiqite restauree
telle qifelle etait en Pan 46 arant notre ere) transcribed into a plan._ All the details
are due to the researches of Daux. Several of the buildings indicated, such as the
theatre, the amphitheatre, the circus, date only from the Roman occupation.
3 STRABO, xvii. iii. 13 ; LIVY, xxix. 35 ; C/ESAR, De Bello Civili, ii. 37 ; APPIAX,
viii. 75. The last-named tells us that Utica had several harbours all easy of access.
^^ ' \
4^V--- • - Hi^V
•• v'
i
'UiJ' IFrfl
; in? 'I W.*»-5
../ E' Lr, J IA]
HARBOURS.
399
In time the town outgrew the island, and built for itself a rampart
round the hill and the slopes which joined it with the sea on the
east and north. A citadel was built on the highest summit, while
temples, houses, and other buildings were grouped between the
fortress and the sea-shore, whose ancient line may still be easily
followed. A new cothon was excavated on the north-western
face of the rampart, and served as the military port of that Utica
FIG. 271. — Plan of the naval harbour at Utica. From Daux.
which resigned itself with so ill a grace to the supremacy of
Carthage, and was always ready to make common cause with
her enemies, whether they called themselves Scipio, Regulus,
or Agathocles.
This harbour was a rectangle of about 792 feet by 415 ; the
corners were rounded. The two short sides and the long side
away from the sea were lined with quays, behind which ran a two
storied building, the lower story standing out a little beyond the
400 HISTOKV OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDKNCIKS.
upper (l;ig. 27 1 ).* It has been suggested that the upper story
contained store rooms while the lower consisted of slips like those
at Carthage, in which galleys were laid up. The chambers of the
lower story were twenty-three feet eight inches high, sixty feet deep,
and fifteen feet four inches wide. Can these really have been sheds
for galleys ? More than one objection occurs to us. We may,
'0 20 at) 45 so itooM.
FIG. 272.— Admiral's palace, Utica. Plan of the ground-floor. From Daux.
perhaps, accept their width as sufficient but we cannot say as much
for their length. The Attic trireme, of which we know more than
of any other ship used by the ancients, was from 112 to 1 16 feet
long.2 And how were the galleys to be lifted to the level of the
1 Our woodcut only shows one half of the basin, but as the whole was symmetri-
cally arranged the other half may be guessed from it.
2 CARTAULT, La Tncre athcnienne, pp. 245, 246.
HARBOURS. 401
quays ? Ought we not to wait until something in the nature of
an inclined plane is discovered before we conclude that these
chambers were stalls for war galleys ? The question deserves
closer study than it has yet received.
Even before Daux had made his researches visitors to the site
of Utica were struck by the fact that the arrangement of its naval
harbour was quite similar to that described by Appian for Car-
thage.1 As in the cothon of the latter city, an islet was left in the
centre of the basin ; its area was about two acres ; a kind of
isthmus joined it to the principal quay and nearly the whole of its
surface was covered by a building whose huge ruins, still partly
standing, have such a peculiar character of their own.
Daux is the only explorer who has made a stay of any length
in this barren and malarious region ; he put forward a curious
restoration of the building in question, which we cannot pretend
to dispute ; but death prevented him from setting out his proofs
and giving us those details of his explorations upon which he
based his idea. It is, therefore, under all reserve that we re-
produce a plan (Fig. 272) and two elevations (Figs. 273 and 274)
compiled by him.
" The admiral's palace consisted of a main block flanked by six
round towers, and of four bastions or lateral ports. The main
block was a huge irregular parallelogram with a round tower at
each of its external angles. In the centre was a rectangular court
i-> O
(D) from which the chief apartments were lighted. All round this
court ran a two-storied vaulted loggia supported on piers. In the
centre of the north side of the palace a great door surmounted by
a large balcony and flanked by two engaged towers, like those at
the external angles, opened upon a small basin (A) divided by
quays from the main harbour, with which, however, it com-
municated by a narrow opening ; here waited the fleet of boats
by which the admiral's orders were transmitted, and the barge in
which he himself made his rounds or went off to his ' flag-ship.'
" On the opposite or southern side was a forecourt (E) with a
fortified gateway and flanking towers like those on the main block.
Outside this gateway there was a wide jetty communicating with
the causeway by which the islet was connected with the mainland.
1 DAVIS, Carthage and Her Remains, pp. 506-508 ; V. GUERIN, Voyage dans la
Regence, vol. i. p. 9 ; BEULE, Fouilles a Carthage, p. 1 1 4.
VOL. I. 3 F
402 HISTURV OF ART IN PHIKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
On the cast and west the \vhole building was Hanked by two
strong bastions (c), their angles rounded like those of the harbour
itself. These bastions were composed of a strong curtain with
three faces, supported within on piers and arches. They had
courtyards inside them. This curtain was crenellated and on its
platform there was room to work military engines. On the north
side the whole building was still further strengthened by two
square forts. Between the foot of the external wall and the water
there was a continuous quay, within which a series of small
parallel cisterns was contrived." l
Daux is not content to re-establish the plan of the ground-floor
from the remains still in place, from the stretches of wall, and even
fragments of vaults which are yet standing ; he has attempted to
restore the arrangements of the upper floors, and to that end has
made use of the broken masonry lying about the site. We are
unable either to dispute or to appreciate the value of his work ;
we have no means of knowing how much of it is pure conjecture
and how much founded on evidence.
We must, therefore, decline to follow him into the details of his
restoration, and be content with pointing out certain features which
are attested both by his formal statements and by some of the
drawings in his plates.
Being entirely of concrete, this palace had a look of weight and
solidity not unlike that of Chaldaean and Assyrian buildings. The
rooms were only lighted by windows four feet eight inches high
and two feet two inches wide, so that they must have been dark
enough, especially as the walls were nearly four feet thick at their
thinnest part.
Some of the halls distributed about the central court were
rectangular, others round ; the four round ones were in the angles
and were covered by hemi-spherical domes. The other rooms,
which were longer and wider, had spherical vaults. In each of the
four angle towers of the main building, as well as in the pair
flanking the great doorway, there was a rectangular spiral staircase
with landings and thirty inches wide. It led up to the flat roofs.
The rooms on the first story were reached by a different set of
staircases contrived in the thickness of the walls.
No trace of a stone or even of a stucco casing has been found.
o
1 DAUX, Rechcrchfs, pp. 201. 202.
1 1. \kUOURS. 405
There were few mouldings, and those of the most elementary kind.
On the outside a huge torus ran round the walls and towers at
about a third of their height from the ground ; in the interior
a roughly profiled cyma reversa marked the foot of the walls and
was repeated about ten feet from the ground.
These were the only ornaments to break the nudity of the great
concrete surfaces. The general look of the building must have
been very severe. It was, in fact, a fortress rather than a palace.
The governing idea of its builder was to obtain solidity at any
cost, and to make use of every defensive contrivance known to his
time. The external walls were very thick and strong, especially
near their base, where a batteringf-ram installed on a raft mio-ht
o o
otherwise have effected a breach. Their great height made an
escalade difficult ; their platforms were fifty-one feet six inches
above the water, and these measurements were increased by the
height of the battlements. Any assailant would find himself
exposed at every point to the fire of the defenders ; the angle
towers flank the whole of the walls while the narrow strip of quay
at their base would hardly afford room to plant a scaling ladder
with a slope sufficient to prevent the garrison from easily throwing
it off.
Well arranged for defence, this palace or castle was also
thoroughly well adapted for the surveillance of the port. From
its terraced roofs the officer in charge had a full view of the basin
and its dependencies and of the sea beyond. Over the chief
entrance there was a wTide balcony, sheltered by an arch, from
which the admiral could superintend the arrival and setting out
of fleets.
Was this strange building Phoenician ? All the probabilities
answer yes.
No doubt the absence of any well-attested Phoenician building
in which barrel vaults and domes play the important part they do
here makes us hesitate for a moment, but, on the other hand,
would our difficulties be lessened if we attempted to claim the
building for the Romans ? When could the Romans have built
such a castle ? Could they have done so during the period,
between the fall of Carthage and its restoration, when Utica was
o
the residence of the pro-consul and the capital of the province ?
But at that time the Mediterranean was a Roman lake. Its ports
406 HISTORY OF ART IN Pihr.xiciA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
had no attack to fear, and it is difficult to see why the new masters
of Utica should have undertaken such a work. Moreover, the
Romans seem to have been ignorant down to our era of all arches
but those of carefully-dressed masonry ; the earliest cupolas of
brick or concrete in Rome date from the end of the first century.1
Does the work date from the first 200 years of the empire ?
At that time the peace of Rome was more profound and her power
more solidly established upon the African coast than ever. More-
over, as soon as the seat of government was transported to the
new Carthage, Utica seems to have decayed fast ; stripped of her
political importance life gradually receded from her, and her
harbours were left to be smothered in the sands of the Baorada.
o
We can hardly believe that she would then set to work at such a
building as this.
The method of construction is quite different from that used in
the numerous Roman buildings in the African province ; the latter
resemble the castle at Utica neither in decoration nor in the details
of their masonry.
Finally, can a single instance be named of the Romans leaving
an island in the centre of an artificial harbour as a site for an
admiral's palace ?
We know, however, that such an arrangement existed at
Carthage, and- it is natural to suppose that she, the New Town,
borrowed the idea from her elder sister. Utica had already en-
joyed centuries of life and prosperity when the development of
Carthage began. The Phoenicians understood the principle of
the vault. In spite of their love for huge units they had now and
then made use of concrete in various forms. In Syria, Spain, and
Africa itself, they had raised concrete breakwaters and land de--
fences of pise, or beaten earth ; their tombs, even, were sometimes
of such materials ; so that we are justified in supposing that the
Phoenicians of Africa had a regular system of architecture founded
upon them.
W7e are, then, inclined to see in the ruins described by Daux the
remains of a Phoenician building of no slight antiquity. Certain
parts of it appear to have been rearranged in the Roman period ;
the terraces were repaired ; a few arches were rebuilt in voussoirs
1 CHOISY, Lart de batir chez hs Romains, pp. 32-33.
HARBOURS. 407
of dressed stone ; but these partial retouches in no way changed the
general character of the work ; their only object was to preserve
it from destruction. During the long years of peace under the
Roman power the old Phoenician stronghold must have been
in much the same position as more than one of our mediaeval
castles are now ; it had nothing to do in a port which no enemy
threatened, and if kept up at all it was kept up as a storehouse
or prison.
The particulars we have been able to collect as to the Cothons
of Carthage and Utica are enough to show how much labour and
thought the Phoenicians gave to their forts, and how much skill
their architects displayed in making the best use of the space at
their command. They soon awoke to the need of separating the
commercial from the naval harbour ; the former had to be always
open, so that the merchant captains could profit by a favourable
wind at any moment of the day or night. The case of the naval
harbour was quite different. There all had to give way before the
necessity for defence ; the governing idea was to put the war-
fleet beyond the reach of attack or even of prying eyes. Open
enemies were not the only ones to be feared ; there were also
sharp-eyed spies to be kept out, men who could tell at a glance
how many ships were on the stocks and how many ready to take
the sea, and foreign workmen — smiths, carpenters, caulkers — had
also to be prevented from learning the trade secrets of the
dockyard.
In all matters of industry, of commerce, and navigation the
Phoenicians pretended to a monopoly, and they guarded the secrets
of their methods and operations with the most pitiless jealousy.
Nothing could be more in character with their whole course of
proceeding than the arrangement of such harbours as those of
Utica and Carthage. They cut their basins inland not only for
reasons connected with the shape of the coast, but also that they
might keep them, as it were, under lock and key, might surround
them with a double rampart, first with that of the city as a whole,
and secondly with that inner wall by which the harbours were
turned into a kind of town within a town, the admiral's palace
being the citadel. This inner town had its water-gates and
its land-gates, through which neither boat nor pedestrian could
pass without permission. Venice, the modern Carthage, took
408 HISTORY OF ART IN PIKKNICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
precautions of exactly the same kind against unbidden visitors to
her famous arsenal.
The Phoenicians were at no less pains to form anchorages for
their fleets than to secure them against unfriendly neighbours.
At Ruad, at Saida, and at Sour the remains of ancient breakwaters
may be seen, and the way in which gaps in the natural reefs were
filled up with masonry may still be traced.1 But the finest ruins
of the kind are off the coast of Africa. Thus in the Utica
marshes some parts of the fine mole which separated the naval
harbour from the sea are still visible. Adrumetum (Sousa) and
Thapsus (I.)imas) possess even more considerable remains of the
same kind.'2 The mole of Thapsus is still 860 feet long (Fig. 275).
Its actual width, after all the waves hive carried awav in an
- •• : " :
I- ic,. 275- — Tlic mole of Thapsus. Elevation. From Daux.
attack spread over five or six-and-tvventy centuries, is nearly
thirty-six feet. It must once have been at least forty feet wide if
each flank had a face of masonry. The part that is left is of
very dense rubble and is built upon piles. The work was
intended to protect the entrance to the naval harbour, which was
situated between the fortifications of the town of Thapsus and
those of its acropolis. As at Utica the trade harbour was an arm
of the sea running between the mainland and a small island.
There is a curious arrangement in this mole which bears
witness to the skill of its constructor. The actual height of the
mass above the water is eight feet. Upon both faces, and above
1 RKNAN, Mission, pp. 40 and 362 ; plates Ixxii. and Ixxiii.
2 DAUX, Recherches, pp. 169-171.
HARBOURS.
409
the reach of the sea when calm, there are a number of rectangular
cavities. These are arranged in rows, chess-board fashion, at
horizontal distances of four feet ten inches, with a vertical distance
of three feet eight inches between the rows. These holes are ten
inches high by seven wide at their mouths ; they go through the
whole thickness of the mole at right angles to its major axis. A
longitudinal canal of the same calibre runs down the centre of the
mass, and connects the transverse channels in each row (Fig 276).
By this contrivance the power of the waves would be sensibly
diminished, as they would lose part of their force in the pipes,
which had a gentle slope to allow the water to flow out again
freely. The upper row of channels is now almost at the surface
of the mole, a clear proof that the latter was once much higher
than it is now. The total height above the sea was probably from
sixteen to eighteen feet.
FIG. 276. — Plan of the mole of Thapsus.
I do not think we have dwelt too long upon the remains of
Phoenician harbours and dockyards. It was upon such structures
that the chief efforts of the people, both in Syria and Africa, were
directed, and their development affords the best illustration of the
part played by these great traders in the ancient world. Hence
we believe that too much stress can hardly be laid upon the
necessity for excavating the two great Carthaginian harbours.
If this undertaking be put off much longer it will become
impossible. Thirty years ago the site was almost a desert ;
ground could be broken almost anywhere at the cost of compen-
sating some peasant farmer for a few uprooted vines or olives.
But since the opening of the railway from Goletta country houses
have never ceased to multiply on the peninsula ; they have
changed the face of the country and are making excavations more
difficult every year. Carthage is not likely to revive altogether ;
such a port as modern ships require could hardly be formed there ;
to Biserta, the ancient Hippo- Diarrytos, with its fine lake of deep
VOL i. 30
4io HISTORY OF ART IN PHOENICIA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
water, must we look for the heir both of Tunis and Carthage.
But the site of Carthage is far healthier than that of Tunis, and
it will soon become a suburb of the capital and a favourite retreat
for its citizens during the heat of summer. Explorers then should
gird up their loins ; the work before them could hardly fail to give
important results if systematically undertaken, but every season
adds to its difficulty.
END OF VOL. I.
LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
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